Moss: Changes in the Halifax Flora. 



The following criticism in August, which is placed side bv 

 side with my own statement in June, calls for no comment from 

 me : — 



Mr. Moss surely does not con- The changes incident to tillage 



tend that, where trippers or what-not operations often bring- about changes 

 exterminate certain plants, no others of flora. 



of different kinds clothe the ground [Nat., June 1900, p. 173.] 



the earlier grew upon ! If earth on 

 Beacon Hill top were enclosed as a 

 garden it would ultimately produce 

 Groundsel or small Veronica or other 

 weeds . . . ; if a bigger acreage 

 were fielded, Cleats, Docks, and 

 Thistles would soon be in evidence 

 where none were apparent before. 

 [Nat., Aug. 1900, pp. 230-1.] 



Some doubt was raised regarding my views of the Halifax- 

 moors. As I intend shortly publishing an article dealing with 

 this question in some detail, I will here only briefly refer to the 

 matter. To state (vide the 4 Rejoinder') that smoke 'must be' 

 a very minus quantity there, is a mere ipse dixit. Let us picture 

 the view of the Lancashire towns as one stands on some of the 

 bold western escarpments of the Pennines, say from Blackstone 

 Edge or Gorple Stones. Deadly suburban fields form the most 

 extensive element of the background ; but what rivet the eye 

 are the scores, and scores again, of mill chimneys, tall, straight, 

 and lank, belching forth volumes of black, dense smoke straight 

 at the rocks on which we stand ! Rochdale, Littleborough, 

 Bacup, Burnley, Nelson, Colne — each contributes its quota, for 

 from them, i.e., from the west, the wind blows for nine months 

 out of the twelve ; and, during the remaining three, Hudders- 

 field, Halifax, Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge, Keighley, 

 Bradford, effectually maintain a continuous supply. Sw T ill Hill 

 is well-nigh permanently embedded in a smoke cloud, being 

 only three and a half miles south-east of Manningham Mills, 

 Bradford, on the one hand, and the same distance north of 

 Dean Clough Mills, Halifax, on the other. Further, given a 

 clean expanse of white snow to begin with, and a driving south- 

 west drizzle to follow, and even on the remotest moors of 

 Halifax, the whole of this clean sheet is in two or three hours 

 palpably blackened. This is testified by resident farmers and 

 keepers, and borne out indirectly by Mr. A. Wilson [12] in his 

 paper at the meeting of the British Association last year. 

 Mr. Wilson says : 'The great smoke drift from South and East 

 Lancashire could be seen crossing over the Pennine Range of 



1901 April 1. 



