1858.] THIRSK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 563 



by Turner, by Landseer, and by Ruskin, stands not far from the 

 streamside, just high enough to save it from the risk of inunda- 

 tion. A portion of it, as readers of Wordsworth know, is still 

 kept in repair, and used as a chapel. Upon the ruined walls 

 grow Linaria Cymbalaria and Cheiranthus Cheiri, and in the 

 meadow near the river here, 350 feet above the sea-level, is 

 Viola lutea. On the opposite side of the river to the abbey is 

 the steep bank of contorted, dark-coloured shale, crested with 

 Oak- and Ash-treqs, that forms the principal object in Turner's 

 picture. Upon the rocks on the west side of the river above the 

 abbey, we gathered Hypnum crassinervium in fruit. For about a 

 mile higher up, the Duke of Devonshire's park extends, and then 

 Bolton Woods are reached. The fells now begin to rise with 

 tolerable abruptness from the streamside ; first Carncliffe, and 

 then Symon's Seat, on the east, attaining respectively 1471 and 

 1585 feet; and on the west, Barden Fell, 1663 feet. The bottom 

 of the fells, down to the riverside, is thickly wooded, and the 

 stream for a considerable distance becomes contracted by cliffs 

 of hard gritstone, between which it forces its Avay in a series of 

 picturesque rapids. These form what is called the Strid, the 

 place where the stag-hunt of the Boy of Egremont met with so 

 fatal a termination. The channel at the narrowest part is only four 

 and a half feet wide ; and here, except when the stream is flooded, 

 a moderately agile person may leap across without much risk of 

 danger. The main botanical notabilia of the place are Orthodontium 

 gracile and Playiochila interrupta. The former we gathered in 

 moderate plenty, in fruit, upon the gritstone scars near the sum- 

 mer-house, and the latter in the bed of the river in some of the 

 quieter places. Sesleria ccerulea is plentiful upon the rocks by 

 the strearaside, and descends here to at least 400 feet : it is 

 quite possible that it may have originally been carried by the 

 Wharfe to this point from the limestone higher up, but it is now 

 well established. The plant grows amongst the debris below 

 Giggleswick Scars at 200 yards. I have also seen it both in 

 Teesdale and Yoredale, within the limits of the mid-agrarian zone, 

 and am informed by our friend Mr. H. Brown, that in the county 

 of Durham it occurs amongst the hills of magnesian limestone 

 that margin the coast between Shields and Sunderland within 

 100 yards of the sea-level. Of flowering plants of the Scottish 

 type of distribution, Arenaria verna, Geranium sylvaticum, Ribes 



