1858.] THIRSK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 619 



"About the middle of the seventh month (July) of the pre- 

 sent year, in company with our valued friend Jas. Backhouse, 

 sen., I made a short excursion to the upper part of Swaledale, 

 and of what was noticed in the botanical way during this trip I 

 propose tonight to give you an outline. The lower part of the 

 Dale was, many years ago, carefully and systematically explored 

 by Mr. Ward, of Richmond, and the detailed results of his 

 labours have been given in various publications, but the large 

 tract of country that lies between E-eeth and the borders of 

 Westmoreland has never been searched and reported upon so 

 far as its botany is concerned. 



"As compared with either Teesdale or Yoredale, the upper 

 part of Swaledale is remarkably shut in and isolated. A sin- 

 gular crescent of six undulated summits, each exceeding 2000 

 feet in elevation, which bear respectively the names of Nine 

 Standards, Fell End, High Seat, Hugh Seat, Ladies' Pillar, and 

 Shunuar Fell, encircles its head-waters, and the passes which 

 lead out of its western extremity into Mallerstang and Wensley- 

 dale (the dales of the Eden and the Yore) are both above 1700 

 feet in height. The stream is made up of a large number of 

 feeders which rise within the space which these peaks enclose, 

 and in eight miles it declines in level more than as many 

 hundred feet. Six miles from its source at Hollow Mill Cross 

 is the village of Keld, and below this it turns south for a couple 

 of miles, and the dale divides into two branches to encircle the 

 curious conical mount of Keasdon, 1643 feet in altitude. These 

 branches unite again at the little town of Muker, and the 

 stream resumes its original eastward flow, which direction it 

 maintains with little deviation till Swaledale is lost in the great 

 central vale of York. 



" Between Muker and Beeth the distance is nine miles, and 

 in this space the river sinks in level from 850 to 600 feet. At 

 Beeth, the Swale is joined by the Arkle, a stream which comes 

 from the north-west, and rises not far from the head of the 

 Greta. The lowest scar limestone just shows itself in the river- 

 bed at Muker, but the sides of the valley are mostly made up 

 of the Yoredale series of strata. These consist here, as in 

 Wensleydale, of five separate bands of limestone, with wide in- 

 tervening spaces, filled up with gritstones and shales. At the 

 upper part of the dale the rocks of this series attain a thickness 



