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south of the Aire, lying between the great coal-fields of the West
Riding and Lancashire, has a lower elevation, and forms grassy uplands
and dales; but farther south, the finest scenery of the whole region
occurs in the limestones of Derbyshire, in which the range terminates.
The rugged beauty of the south-running valleys, and especially of
Dovedale, is enhanced by the rich woods which still clothe the slopes.
There are remarkable features underground as well as on the surface,
the caverns and subterranean streams of Yorkshire and Derbyshire being
amongst the deepest that have yet been explored. Compared with the
rugged and picturesque scenery of the Lower Carboniferous rocks, that
of the Coal Measures is, as a rule, featureless and monotonous. The
coal-fields on the eastern side, from the Tyne nearly to the Trent,
are sharply marked off on the east by the outcrop of Permian dolomite
or Magnesian limestone, which forms a low terrace dipping towards the
east under more recent rocks, and in many places giving rise to an
escarpment facing westward towards the gentle slope of the Pennine
dales. To the west and south the Coal Measures dip gently under the
New Red Sandstone, to reappear at several points through the Triassic
plain. The clear water of the upland becks and the plentiful supply of
water-power led to the founding of small paper-mills in remote valleys
before the days of steam, and some of these primitive establishments
still exist. The prosperity and great population of the Pennine
region date from the discovery that pit-coal could smelt iron as well
as charcoal; and this source of power once discovered, the people bred
in the dales developed a remarkable genius for mechanical invention
and commercial enterprise, which revolutionized the economic life of
the world and changed England from an agricultural to an industrial
country. The staple industry of the district in ancient times was
sheep-rearing, and the villages in nearly all the dales carried on a
small manufacture of woollen cloth. The introduction of cotton caused
the woollen manufactures on the western side to be superseded by the
working up of the imported raw material; but woollen manufactures,
themselves carried on now almost entirely with imported raw material,
have continued to employ the energies of the inhabitants of the east.
Some quiet market-towns, such as Skipton an