228 fEESIDENl's ADDHESS. 



it. It was the first day of the Races, and hanging about the 

 streets and the station were crowds of the lowest class of betting 

 men, and the poor specimens of humanity who emerge on such 

 occasions, who, made in God's image, have through vice and 

 drink fallen from that high position. Under a drizzling rain 

 wretched little barefooted children were calling out '* Correct 

 cards of the Races" through the dirty streets. What a gulf 

 there seemed to be between such scenes and those into which we 

 were ushered when, within a few hours, we stood, out in the 

 pure air, beneath the escarpments of the Pennine range. The 

 sky was a clear pale silver, touched with green. Huge masses 

 of dark clouds were passing over it, rolling down upon the moor- 

 lands from the east. Right before us, as we stood at Kirkby 

 Stephen, was the Hill of the Seven Standards, with the seven 

 strange monoliths which give it its name clearly defined against 

 its lofty and silvery skyline. One great mass of cloud especially 

 attracted our attention. It passed rapidly over our heads, and 

 against this hill top it charged like a living thing, bursting over 

 it, and hiding it from view. Altogether the scene was of fasci- 

 nating sublimity. Our position however was not without draw- 

 backs, for with one of those rolling masses of cloud we were 

 destined to make a closer acquaintance. It suddenly broke over 

 and around us in a deluge of rain, driving us to the nearest shel- 

 ter, and thoroughly drenching us. 



. During our detention at Kirkby Stephen some of our party 

 made an examination of the series of small pot holes worked out 

 in the peculiar conglomerate which forms the bed of the Eden. 

 Leaving Kirkby Stephen we passed through the weird moorlands, 

 the source and watershed whence the Eden, the lire, and the 

 Ribble take their rise. As we rattled along through tunnels and 

 cuttings we caught glimpses of those huge mounds of carbonifer- 

 ous limestone forming the mountain masses of Whernside, Ingle- 

 borough, and Penyghent, and of the vast sections of vertical 

 Silurian slate which form the basement rock of the Craven dis- 

 trict. 



At Settle we found a comfortable home for a few days in the 

 pleasantly-situated Ashfield Hotel. Early next morning we 



