Report of Meetings for 1885. By Jas. Hardy. 43 



Everything was very dry. A domestic pigeon flew out from a 

 fissure ; hence the name of the peak from pigeons nestling in it. 

 A Wheat-ear was also taking short low flights from rock to rock. 

 The rock surfaces were very much weathered, and shewed worm- 

 like convolutions, the results of irregular deposition. The 

 Simonside grit was marked by the rolled quartz pebbles enclosed 

 in it. The strata are the outcrops of successive bands of rock 

 rising in tiers above each other as the country is crossed from 

 west to east. 



The prospect behind the hills is extensive but not very pre- 

 possessing. We look across the depressed and monotonous 

 moors and swampy grounds that spread far and wide to the 

 south and south-east bases of the hills, where Newbiggen, Bed- 

 path, Fallowlees, and Black-cock Hall are situated ; margined 

 on this aspect by the backs of the drier mound-like heights of 

 Greenleighton, where in their famous inroad under Earl Douglas, 

 the Scots "lighted down," 



" Styrande many a stagge." 



There were other elevated back grounds of still farther distant 

 piled-up crags along the moorland verge, supposed to be those 

 of Harwood. Lifting the eyes from the waste, and gazing far 

 away into cloud-land the blue Cumberland hills from Crossfell 

 to Tindal-f ell come dimly forward ; and even the Skiddaw group, 

 behind its angular rampier of Brocklebank Fells, is distinguish- 

 able. We picked out Chartner Loch where the Font originates ; 

 and where the Nuphar intermedium grows secluded ; and in whose 

 marshes, ("in desortis subhumidis muscosis et paludosis,") 

 Andromeda jpoUfolia, on which Linnaeus in his poetic enthusiasm 

 pronounces a lively encomium, (Flora Lapponica, ed. Smith, p. 

 133) thrives. 



Mr Scott told us that a very large trunk of oak had been ex- 

 tracted from the moss on Fallowlees, and that trees had been 

 dug out of drains ; hence it may be inferred that the country 

 hereabouts has not always been so shelterless as it is now. An 

 old oak had also been procured from a bog west of Spylaw. Mr 

 Topley (Guide to Kothbury, pp. 52-3) observes that "there are 

 numerous traces of old iron-works on the moors. Slag is found 

 up the Black Burn, and also in the stream beds on the south 

 side of Simonside. There are large heaps along the Fallowlees 

 Burn, and also on Wards Hill. These slag heaps are commonly 

 considered to be Eoman, but as yet no sufficient proof of this 



