and form a sloping roof to it. The surface is completely covered with luxuriant moss, and from the land overhead comes an incessant filter of water, which at once nourishing the moss and entangled in it, causes it to hang down in long vegetable ringlets. At a distance they seem soft, but examination shows that every drop has brought along with it a particle of earth, which being deposited in the very substance of the moss, is gradually converting it into stone. Every cluster, externally so green and living, is in its heart a petrifaction. [Illustration: Tho. Letherbrow. _Oldfield, Dunham_] Very pleasant walks, of entirely different character, are to be found also, when at Lymm, along the great alluvial flat bordered by the river, and which reaches to Thelwall. Thelwall was once a port for ships! When founded by Edward the elder, about the year 923, the stream was so much wider and deeper that, according to tradition, the Danish invaders came this way in vessels, landed, and established a camp or fortress at Mickley Hill, the mound, now covered with fir-trees, which marks the point where the Bollin enters. Up to about 1855, or before the water was so defiled, the Mersey at this part, and more particularly near Statham, was to the sportsman supremely attractive. It was visited in the winter by many curious birds, including the sheldrake, the widgeon, the teal, and occasionally the wild swan. Lymm village contains several objects of archæological interest. Near the centre are the remains of an ancient cross, the lower steps of which are cut out of the solid rock; and close by, upon an eminence, is Lymm Hall, an ancient building, once, like most others of its kind, protected by a moat. Lymm church tower is as high above the sea-level at the base as Bowdon old tower is at the top. The shrubs in the gardens, owing to the altitude, are often reached, in tempestuous weather, by the salt of the Irish Sea. Near Lymm there are many other very interesting places. Oughtrington Hall and Agden Hall, in the Dunham direction; High Legh, with its ancient and beautiful little church, covered with ivy; and Warburton, again noted for its church, are all, in their respective ways, full of attraction. Warburton church is one of the three in Cheshire which, as at Peover, were built in the quaint old "black and white" or "magpie" style. Only a portion, however, of the original remains at Warburton, new structures, very odd in complexion, having been added at various times. The stone part is dated 1645,--the tower, about a century old, and fortunately now ivy-mantled, is of _brick_! The yews are no doubt contemporaneous with the foundation, say about seven hundred years of age.