Derbyshire and Yorkshire. 565 



dales, much of it is unfitted for ordinary agricultural 

 operations. 



The Derbyshire limestone tract, for the most part 

 high and grassy, consists almost entirely of pasture 

 lands, intersected by cultivated valleys. On the east 

 and west that region is skirted by high heathy ridges 

 of Millstone Grit. North of the limestone lies the 

 moss-covered plateau of Millstone Grit, called Kinder 

 Scout, nearly 2,000 feet in height; and beyond this, 

 between the Lancashire and Yorkshire coalfields, there 

 is a vast expanse of similar moorland, intersected by 

 grassy valleys. Still further north, all the way to the 

 borders of Scotland, east of the fertile Vale of Eden, 

 the country may also be described as a great high 

 plateau, sloping gently eastward, through which the 

 rivers of Yorkshire and Northumberland have scooped 

 unnumbered valleys. 



The uplands are generally heathy, with occasional 

 tracts of peat and small lakes ; but when formed partly 

 of limestone, grassy mountain pastures are apt to pre- 

 vail, through which in places those ' blind roads ' run 

 northward into Scotland, so graphically described in 

 chapters xxii. and xxiii. of Scott's ' Guy Mannering.' 

 Here and there the deeper valleys are cultivated, dotted 

 with villages, hamlets, the seats of squires, farms, and the 

 small possessions of the original Statesmen. Of this 

 kind of land the Yorkshire dales may be taken as a 

 type. Nothing is more beautiful than these dales, so 

 little known to the ordioary tourist. The occasional 

 alluvial flats of the Calder, the Aire, Wharfdale, 

 Niddesdale, Wensleydale, Swaledale, Teesdale, Wear- 

 dale, the Derwent, and the valleys of the North and 

 South Tyne, all alike tell their tale to the eye of the 

 geologist, the artist, and the farmer. The accidental 



