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THE OUSE & FOSS DISTRICT (No. i). 



This district and the Ainsty are the only two of our nine 

 drainage districts which do not include within their limits any 

 hills of the Middle Zone, and this district, next to the Ainsty, is 

 the smallest of the nine. The greater part of it was included 

 in the royal forest of Galtres, which was kept for the purpose of 

 a royal hunting ground almost in an aboriginal state from the 

 time of the Saxons down to the year 1670, when an act of 

 parliament was obtained, and the forest broken up and enclosed. 

 Only a small portion of the watershed of the district on the 

 north-east is above one hundred yards in elevation, and fully 

 one-half of its surface is within one hundred feet of the sea-level. 



The Ouse, which is now a river of large size, forms the 

 boundary of the district on the south-west, and the Foss and a 

 smaller stream called the Kyle run through it from the north- 

 east in that direction. Both these two latter take their rise 

 upon the slope of the arenaceous Howardian terrace at its 

 highest end, which is the point of watershed between Foss, 

 Swale, and Derwent. The wooded slope of the terrace at 

 Yearsley, and the steep wooded glen at the bottom of which are 

 the Foss reservoirs, and the uncultivated heaths of the upper 

 part of the ridge above them have something -of a montane 

 aspect ; and from an elevation of nearly 200 yards on Yearsley 

 moor there is a iine view down the glen to the Wolds in the 

 distance, and towards the south-west of the ridge upon which 

 Crayke Castle stands, and the wide sweep of low country, in the 

 direction of York, beyond it. The following are the more 

 interesting plants which grow here : 



Ranunculus floribundus 



Teesdalia nudicaulis 

 CerasUum sonidecandrum 

 Spergularia nibra 

 Sedu?}i Telephium 



Filago minima 

 Plantago Coronopus 

 Potamogeton- heierophyllus 

 Carex fulva 

 Didymodon fiexifoliiis 



