ia i Fs xt a 
BOTANICAL EXCURSION IN 
a plant of the species in question in his 
It had been growing on the edge 
of a rabbit-hole, and had been undermined 
by those creatures, so that when he placed 
his foot upon the plant, which he did with- 
out seeing it, the ground had given way, 
and it had become detached from the earth, 
rew. The 
g 
neum in the dnas under similar 
circumstances, and very far from what it 
must have been, had it lain four days in an 
almost empty vasculum, or had been 
brought without a box for a distance of 
eight or ten miles that morning. We saw 
no more of it, either in this station or in 
. another at a little distance, which Wright 
had also noted. The shore south of Work- 
seven, in a 
miserable * conveyance," to Ravenglass, 
me we found nothing but Centunculus 
inimus, and a minute variety of Erythrea 
latifolia, hunting in vain for Sisymbrium 
Monense and Lithospermum maritimum, 
both of which, I think, I had found in that 
neighbourhood on a former occasion. The 
next day we walked over Muncaster Fell, 
which is of granite, crossed the Mite by a 
deserted farm-house, and visited Wastdale 
Screes. My active and energetic compa- 
nion descended one of the ravines quite 
about half way, and nes finding the de- 
Scent become more and more difficult, I 
re-ascended, but not in the same line, and 
m so doing got into a narrow cleft of the 
rock with a stream running down it, which 
I should have thought a most excellent 
position for alpine plants, but I found no- 
thing there but Sazifraga stellaris and S. 
aizoides, Oxy yria reniformis and other 
Species, peculiar indeed to our moun- 
tains, but on them very commonly met 
with; Sazifraga oppositifolia grows in 
_ Several places, but of course it was out of 
; Mower, and S. hypnoides and Asplenium 
e. The next day we went up Haller 
Ba, iir to find something on the de- 
THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 297 
composing granite into which it penetrates. 
We then again visited the Screes, and my 
enterprising companion again descended, 
while I contented myself with going down 
from the summit in several places for a 
short distance, for nearly their whole length. 
I had gathered, some years before, the 
Potentilla fruticosa in such a position, but 
I could this time see nothing of it. There 
is a piece of boggy ground between the 
two summits of the Screes; and where a 
little stream draws from this, we have an 
easy descent among the rocks for a short 
distance, and this spot, I think, unites all 
so continually giving way, that its present 
condition hardly gives us any power of 
tracing the past, or indicating future habi- 
tats. Mr. Wright found the remains of an 
iron-work on the descent, which he attri- 
butes to the Romans. It was marked by 
something of an artificial platform, which 
had lasted through all the changes of the 
mountain, by a quantity of Scorie, and by 
a vein of beautiful mammillated iron ore in 
the neighbourhood. [t is to be noted that 
these falls of the mountain, which are now 
so frequent, only began in the early part 
of the last century. A few years ago, the 
movement was so considerable, that for 
some days the mountain seemed to be on 
fire from the smoke or dust ascending from 
it, and the outlet from the lake being stop- 
ped up, the meadows above it were over- 
flowed, till a jong was dug for the dis- 
charge of the w 
On the se we d Seafell Pikes, 
the highest mountain in England, 3,166 
feet above the sea. It consists of green- 
stone, which seems to split readily into 
fragments, but not to decompose into a 
good soil, so that the upper part of the 
mountain is covered with loose stones, and 
neither these nor the crags a little lower 
down, nourish any rare plants. Indee 
there is little vegetation of any sort. From 
this excursion I returned to Keswick, and 
