air.

On Monday, the 2nd of August, 1875, after an expenditure of three
millions, the Settle and Carlisle line was opened for goods traffic. It
must have been an awful undertaking, the making of it. "I declare," said
a rhetorical farmer, "there is not a level piece of ground big enough to
build a house upon all the way between Settle and Carlisle." An ascent
had to be made to a height of more than a thousand feet above the level
of the sea, by an incline that should be easy enough for the swiftest
passenger expresses and for the heaviest mineral trains to pass securely
and punctually up and down, not only in the light days of summer, but in
the darkest and "greasiest" December nights. To construct it the men had
to cut the boulder clay--very unpleasant stuff to deal with--to hew
through granite, to build on morasses and dismal swamps. Near the
southernmost end of the valley, watered by the roaring Ribble, the town
of Settle stands among wooded hills, overhung by a lofty limestone rock
called Castlebar; while far beyond on the left and right rise, above the
sea of mountains, the mighty outlines of Whernside and Pennegent, often
hid in the dark clouds of trailing mists. Up the valley the new line
runs, pursuing its way among perhaps the loneliest dales, the wildest
mountain wastes, and the scantiest population of any part of England.
Three miles from Settle we reach Stainforth Force, and just beyond are
the remains of a Roman camp. At Batty Green the navvies declared that
they were in one of the wildest, windiest, coldest, and dreariest
localities in the world. In the old coaching days the journey across
these wilds was most disagreeable and trying. It was no unusual thing,
we read, for rain to come down upon the travellers in torrents; for snow
to fall in darkened flakes or driving showers of powdered ice; for winds
to blow and howl with hurricane force, bewildering to man and beast; for
frost to bite and benumb both hands and face till feeling was almost
gone; and for hail and sleet to blind the traveller's eyes and to make
his face smart as if beaten with a myriad of slender cords. In Dent
Dale, which is almost ten miles in length, the scenery is remarkably
fine. Nearly five hundred feet below, now sparkling in the sunlight, now
losing itself among some clusters of trees, winds the river Dee; while
first on one side and then on the other is the road that leads to
Sedbergh. Leaving the tunnel, we find ourselv