et, and looks over the mountainous ridges on every side,
one sees, as a rule, no peak or isolated height of any description to
attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
water-falls pour over the wall of limestone--as at Hardraw Scar, near
Hawes--the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
overhanging above.

Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
Wensleydale--or, indeed, most of the dales--without seeing any heather
at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.

In the upper portions of the dales--even in the narrow riverside
pastures--the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
that are the