4 
DARTMOOR SCENERY, 
generated on each new variation of position, and 
thus the mind is carried by successive steps of 
reason, on the road of human learning, by this 
occupation of external sense. The great improve¬ 
ment experienced by invalids, through “ change of 
air” is not so much due to difference of atmospheric 
qualities, (extreme cases excepted) as to the revul¬ 
sions of feelings and sentiments arising in their 
minds, and thence salutary alterations on their 
bodily systems, by the ceaseless intercourse and 
mutual influence of the physical and moral portions 
of the constitution. 
As the visitor advances he finds a change 
in the strata or rocks, over which he is passing ; 
the soil becomes shallow, but dark and rich ; the 
herbage scanty, but fine-bladed and sweet; the wild 
plants are wholly different,—the ling and furze are 
spread in all directions, beneath them are thick 
tufts of thyme, visited by the wandering bee; in 
the dry open spots is the splendid foxglove 
creeping between the stones, in some favored 
elevated spot, is seen the delicate ivy-leaved 
campanula ; the tormentil is spread profusely ; the 
marsh louse-wort occurs in numerous damp spots; 
on the margin of the stream grows the w T ater violet; 
in the stream itself the lesser w^ater plantain ; on 
the wastes generally is spread an abundance of rushes 
and other similar moorish plants; on the tors 
above, Nature hasbestowed a many-coloured mantle 
of lichens and other parasites, which depend for 
subsistence on the vapours and heavy rains which 
ever and anon are poured out upon them. The 
titlark, the stonechat, the raven, the curlew, dis¬ 
cover themselves at intervals of the journey, and 
prove that even Dartmoor is not deserted by the 
feathered tribes. Neither have we told the tithe 
of its natural possessions ; on the contrary, the 
scrutinizing search of naturalists has displayed 
