146 baker's north YORKSHIRE. 



and above it the peaks rise with tolerable abruptness to a height 

 of 400 feet above the pass. The stream flowing east soon 

 swells to a considerable size, and in the swampy ground about 

 the first sheep-fold the Ranunculus grows in plenty. The glen 

 of the northern fork of the Swale is called Birkdale, of the 

 southern fork, which penetrates the recesses of Great Shunnor 

 Fell, is called Great Sleddale. For the first six miles the 

 course of the stream is almost due east, and between its head 

 and the village of Keld, which is just six miles from the source, 

 it declines in level at the rate of not less than a hundred feet 

 per mile. Opposite the mouth of Little Sleddale Beck is the 

 first farm house, Crook Seat, at an elevation of 500 yards above 

 the sea-level. There is an edge of gritstone upon the crest of 

 the moorland swell above it, and a peaty tarn about half a mile 

 in circumference, which is called Birkdale Tarn and is 1614 

 feet in elevation. Next we have a branch stream from the north, 

 which is called Whitsundale Beck, and runs down a glen which is 

 of considerable size and contains several farm-houses. This stream- 

 let rises amongst the recesses of Nine Standards Rigg, and has 

 two principal forks with a spur of moorland with a scraggy grit- 

 stone edge between them which yields Allosorus crispus and 

 Andrecea rupestris. At the junction of these two forks is a 

 farmhouse called Raven Seat and here green fields begin. 

 From this point to the Swale the stream runs down a steep glen, 

 well-wooded and often margined with Main Limestone scars, 

 over which fall several streamlets which form cascades in a 

 rainy season. I do not remember to have seen Epilobium 

 angiistifolium anywhere in greater luxuriance and profusion 

 than it grows here. I have not visited the glen late enough in 

 the season to see the plant in flower, but at this time it must 

 show a profusion of rich colouring. In the neighbourhood of 

 some of the farm-houses which this dale contains Peucedamim 

 Ostriithium and Senecio saracenicus have become naturalised. 

 The rarer indigenous plants of the woods and rocks of the glen 

 ^re the following ; 



