president's addeess. 283 



being disturbed, their melancholy note being in full accord 

 with the place. After bidding farewell to those of our party 

 who intended to travel westwards, and after looking down the 

 initiatory valley of the Tees, we turned our faces to the north 

 and east, to our companions and conveyances far below, and get- 

 ting a few plants of the Cloudberry as we descended we soon bid 

 adieu to this lonely desolate mountain top, cheerless in its isolated 

 barren loneliness. The view immediately north of the Fell is 

 not without beauty or interest, bounded as it is on the west by 

 ridges rising more than 2,000 feet, forming the highest part of 

 the Pennine escarpment, with a deep basin scooped out to a great 

 depth below, and traversed now by two small streams, Drypot 

 and Cash well Burn. These unite at Cash well Force, and form 

 Black-burn, which cuts its passage deeply between the Fells, and 

 joins the Tyne before reaching Alston. In looking down this 

 basin in summer time, two or three bright green mounds are 

 seen amidst the dark peaty, heathery moorland, Bulman's Hill 

 and Lambgreen Hill, oases, as it were, in this desolate waste. 

 They are isolated patches of liniestone covered with short grass 

 and other plants which delight in a limestone soil. Those who 

 have been deputed to examine these rocks have been unable to 

 explain how they happen to be so placed. At the foot of the 

 Cashwell Burn a large vein or dyke occurs, filled in some places 

 at least with iron pyrites, and named by the local geologists, 

 the Great Sulphur Vein, or Miners' " Backbone of the Earth." 

 In our excursions we could not see distinct features of this on the 

 surface, though we must have crossed the line of the dyke, which 

 is supposed to disperse itself on the Yad Moss. A theory, suffi- 

 ciently startling to incite some of our younger members to in- 

 vestigate the accuracy of the suggestion, has lately been broached 

 that the "igneous dyke" known as the Cockfield Dyke actually 

 extends from the neighbourhood of Scarborough to the Biver 

 Eden, at Armathwaite, crossing between these points over Yad 

 Moss, portions of the counties of Durham and Cumberland. We 

 could see no indication of this dyke on our road to and from 

 Cross Fell, nor could we trace any dyke in a former examination 

 of the Black-burn, from its foot upwards to Cashwell Burn, 



