Running on, past Rochdale and through the tunnel, again there is a quite new sphere of enjoyment in the country which lies on the northern side of the Todmorden valley, everywhere picturesque, and constantly branching into subordinate valleys with never-silent streams. The finest of them are the Burnley valley and the vast and romantic defile called, as a whole, Hardcastle Crags, though this name applies strictly to no more than the singular insulated masses of rock at the upper extremity or beyond the bridge. A more charming resort for two-thirds of a day the West Riding scarcely offers. The path is first through the so called "streets," at an angle of forty-five degrees, that lead towards Heptonstall, then along the crest of the hill until the point is reached for descending through the wood, at the foot of which, if the water be low enough, the stream may be crossed by stepping-stones. Clinging to them will be found in plenty that curious aquatic moss the _Fontinalis antipyretica_, so named by Linnæus in reference to the use which he says it was put to by the peasantry in Sweden. Possessed of properties so much the more singular from their occurrence in a water-plant, the country people, he tells us, were accustomed to use it to fill up the spaces between the chimneys and the walls of their houses, so as to exclude the air and serve as a protection against fire. The wood is in many parts quite a little natural fernery. We have on various occasions seen no fewer than five different species all growing so near together that they could be touched without moving a single step--the common shield-fern, the broad-leaved sylvan shield-fern, the hard-fern, the oak-fern, and the beech-fern. Oak-fern, _Polypodium Dryopteris_, is a frequent inhabitant of the dells hereabouts where moist, growing in patches more than a foot across. [Illustration: W. Hull. Tho. Letherbrow. Halewood Church.]