46 
were suddenly impressed, as they gazed upwards at the riven 
sides of that stupendous gorge — contemplated the abrupt and 
giddy escarpments of Kilnsey — or the vast Cove of Malham — 
each and all geological monuments of the first class, perhaps 
unequalled in Europe ; while the stalactitic galleries of 
Ingleborough exhibit a fine example of the latter.* 
To the eastward of Settle, and also near ArnclifFe, caves 
have long been known and visited ; but only as subterranean 
wonders, without any consideration as to their former occu- 
pants, or the period at which they were the abodes of men 
and other animals. Though dates in these cases are only 
conjectural, some approximation may be arrived at by 
examining such " foot-prints in the sands of time" as they 
contain, of the former inhabitants of the hills and valleys of 
Yorkshire ; and these are not a few. 
Mr. O'Callaghan and myself having ascertained that some 
interesting geological and archaeological discoveries had been 
made at different times in some of these caves, by Mr. 
Jackson, of Settle, I applied to him for such information as his 
intimate knowledge of the localities enabled him to supply. 
* Whitaker thus describes Gordale and Malham Cove, p. 267. — " The 
approach to Gordale, on the east side of the village, happily remains what 
nature left it, a stony and desolate valley, without a single object to divert the 
eye from the scene before it. This is a solid mass of limestone, cleft asunder 
by some great convulsion of nature, and opening " its ponderous and marble 
jaws," on the right and left. The sensation of horror on approaching it, is 
increased by the projection of either side from its base, so that the two 
connivent rocks, though considerably distant at the bottom, admit only a 
narrow line of day-light from above. At the very entrance, you turn a little 
to the right, and are struck by a yawning mouth in the face of the opposite 
crag, whence the torrent, pent up beyond, suddenly forced a passage within 
the memory of man, which at every swell continues to spout out one of the 
boldest and most beautiful cataracts that can be conceived. Bishop Pococke, 
who had seen all that was great and striking in the rocks of Arabia and Judea, 
declared that he had never seen anything comparable to this place." 
** Malham Cove is an immense crag of limestone, 286 feet high, stretched 
in the shape of the segment of a large circle across the whole valley, and 
forming a termination at once so august and tremendous, that the imagination 
can scarcely figure any form or scale of rock within the bounds of probability 
that shall go beyond it." 
