Bowes the principal branch of the stream is spanned by a natural arch of Main Limestone which bears the name of God's Bridge, and for some distance below the stream is usually swallowed up, like the Dove and Bran by the Middle Oolite. On the south side of the dale the Main Limestone girdles the edge of a steep moor past Hope and Barningham,* beneath a rounded swell of gritstone which sweeps away from the top of it to the summit of the ridge, till at last, at the junction of the Greta with the Tees at Rokeby, 380 feet above the sea, we have the limestone down again to the level of the river. The finest piece of cliff is at Gilmanscar, opposite Bowes, a station for Draba incana, Saxifraga hypnoides and Orthothecium intricatum. The lowest strata of the dale are those of the bed of the river at Rutherford bridge. Below Brignall and Scargill the stream runs in a deep glen, with flagstone quarries and deep woods. Rokeby, with its rocky river channel and thick woods and limestone scars, with Mortham's Tower and Fitz-Hugh's tomb on the crest of the southern slope, and the charming Dairy Bridge, and the steep sylvan bank of the Tees where it breaks through the limestone immediately beneath the Abbey Bridge, should be visited by all tourists. * 'The scenery whose influence I can trace most definitely throughout his works, varied as they are, is that of Yorkshire: of all his drawings I think that of the Yorkshire series have most heart in them, the most affectionate, simple, unwearied, serious finishing of truth. His first conceptions of mountain scenery seem to have been taken from Yorkshire, and its rounded hills, far winding rivers and broken limestone scars to have formed a type in his mind to which he sought, so far as might be obtained, some correspondent imagery in other landscapes. Hence he almost always preferred to have a precipice low down upon the hillside, rather than near the top liked an extent of rounded slope above and the vertical cliff to water and valley better than the slope at the bottom and the wall at the top, and had his attention early directed to those horizontal, or comparatively horizontal beds of rock which usually form the face of the precipices in the Yorkshire dales, not, as in the Matterhorn, merely indicated by veined colouring on the surface of the smooth cliff, but projecting or mouldering away in definite succession of ledges, cornices and steps. Other artists are led away by foreign sublimities and distant interests, delighting always in that which is most markedly strange and quaintly contrary to the scenery of their own homes. But Turner evidently felt that the claims upon his regard possessed by those places which had first opened to him the joy and the labour of his life could never be superseded. No Alpine cloud could efface, no Italian sunbeam outshine the memory of the pleasant dales and days of Rokeby and Bolton: and many a simple promontory dim with southern olive, many a lone cliff that stooped unnoticed over some alien wave, was recorded by him with a love and delicate care that were the shadows of old thoughts and long-lost delights whose charm yet hung like morning mist above the chanting waves of Wharfe and Greta.'-RUSKIN. The following are the rarer plants of these stations: Stellaria nemorum Astragalus glycyphyllos Epilobium angustifolium Ribes petræum Distichium capillaceum Amblystegium Sprucei. The limestone From the Greta eastward to the district boundary is a tract of undulated low country, with a good deal of wood and generally a strong clayey soil, which altogether occupies something under a quarter of the whole district. It has no town in it or village of any considerable size and does not anywhere exceed five miles in breadth from north to south. A little stream which rises in the low country not far from the Greta flows due east and enters the Tees at Croft. sweeps obscurely round the upper part of its hollow and the remainder of the surface is mainly occupied, on the west by the Millstone Grit, and on the east by the New Red Sandstone. At Piercebridge the Magnesian Limestone, which comes out in strong force upon the north of the river, just shews itself in a cliff by the Tees side. Here grow Anemone Pulsatilla, Helleborus viridis, Sambucus Ebulus and Stachys ambigua. From Piercebridge to Croft an embankment sweeps along by the river side, sometimes coming up to the water's edge and sometimes retreating from it for a short space, upon which, where it is dry and sandy, grow Rosa Sabini, Scabiosa columbaria, Picris hieracioides and Origanum vulgare. At a distance of about a mile from the Tees at Stapleton is situate upon the Durham side of the river the town of Darlington. By the side of the Tees in the Central Valley Scirpus pauciflorus and Stellaria nemorum occur, and there is abundance of Myrrhis odorata, and some of the Montane rarities which grow about the upper part of the river, as for instance Gentiana verna, Galium boreale and Plan tago maritima, may occasionally be seen to establish themselves for a while. Halnaby Carr, a small piece of wooded swampy ground about a mile from Croft by the side of the road to Richmond, is a good botanical locality. It yields Ranunculus Lingua, Pyrola rotundifolia, Listera cordata, Carex teretiuscula, C. stricta, Eriophorum gracile, Hypnum stramineum, and abundance of H. Blandovii and H. nitens, and in an adjacent lane is a station for Juncus diffusus. The ascertained flora of this district is decidedly below that of five of the others. Of the Montane species it has 77 out of 85, which is considerably more than any of the others can furnish, but the Montane is the sole category in which it can claim a superiority. Its Xerophilous species are neither so numerous nor so abundant as in the West Swale, Yore, and Derwent districts. Of the Submaritime species it has one only; its Hygrophilous plants are very few in number and rare; and its Rarer Ascending considerably under the average number. The following is an analytical table of its flora: JOHN GILBERT BAKER, F.R.S., F.L.S., THE ROYAL HERBARIUM, KEW, EX-PRESIDENT AND PERMANENT VICE-PRESIDENT OF The next instalment will include a continuation of the Flora. |