The old Banksian minute-books and other records and illustrations of the work of fifty years ago have, very fortunately, been preserved, and are now in the safe keeping of their proper inheritor. No written memorials of the Natural History class are extant, but four or five of the original members still venerate the name of their ancient leader. [Illustration] Footnote [20: In indicating the share, unacknowledged and unrewarded, which Townley had in the compilation of the "Guide," we merely wish to give honour where honour is due, neither on the one hand suppressing truth, nor on the other saying a word that shall look like unfair disparagement. It is but just to the memory of a worthy man, now no more, that the living should know what they owe to him.] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. MERE CLOUGH. O 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he The humble man, who in his early years Knew just so much of folly as had made His riper manhood more securely wise. COLERIDGE. Mere Clough! Where is that? Such will probably be the reception of our present title, at least in thought, by not a few of those whom we hope to be the means of introducing to this romantic little glen. For it is positively surprising how much of the rural beauty of our neighbourhood is unknown, even to those who delight in country scenes and the fresh air of the fields; and how often the very existence of it is unsuspected till some fortunate accident brings home the welcome truth. Nowhere within the same very short distance of Manchester is so much woodland beauty to be found as in Mere Clough and its immediate neighbourhood; nor is any place within four miles of the Cathedral the avenue to so many pleasant auxiliary walks. In botanical riches Mere Clough is second nearly to Bowdon, over which place it has the advantage of its earliest plants being among the rare ones of the Manchester flora, while its latest are some of the most beautiful and attractive. The name of "clough," though so familiar in Lancashire, is not known in the southern counties. Hence it may be useful to observe that "cloughs," beyond the Mersey, are those fissures or "clefts" in the ground which give the first and simplest idea of a valley. Formed by the rise, in opposite directions, of two gentle acclivities, which run for a short distance in a more or less irregular and winding parallel, and at last widely diverge, or else undulate away into the plain, these "cloughs" have in every case a little stream along the bottom, while the slopes on either side are clothed with trees and natural shrubbery. Along the borders of the stream there is a slender rustic path, which often quits the water-side to mount high upon the slope, and thus give pretty little peeps of the shining current down below and of the distant leafy intricacies of the wood. Rarely is there so much water as to form a deep and steady brook; in summer-time we