called the "Seven Sisters." But, unfortunately, only two now remain, gnarled and twisted, with decaying trunks and falling limbs--ruins in fact that are as venerable as Fountains Abbey itself. Botanists say they are twelve hundred years old, and that they were full-grown trees when the exiles from York first encamped alongside the Skell. [Illustration: FOUNTAINS TOWER AND CRYPT.] [Illustration: FOUNTAINS HALL.] Entering the close, the ruins of the abbey church are seen in better preservation than the other buildings. The roof is gone, for its woodwork was used to melt down the lead by zealous Reformers in the sixteenth century, and green grass has replaced the pavement. The ruins disclose a noble temple, the tower rising one hundred and sixty-eight feet. In the eastern transept is the beautiful "Chapel of the Nine Altars" with its tall and slender columns, some of the clustering shafts having fallen. For some distance southward and eastward from the church extend the ruins of the other convent-buildings. In former times they were used as a stone-quarry for the neighborhood, many of the walls being levelled to the ground, but since the last century they have been scrupulously preserved. The plan is readily traced, for excavations have been made to better display the ruins. South of the nave of the church was the cloister-court. On one side was the transept and chapter-house, and on the other a long corridor supporting the dormitory. This was one hundred yards long, extending across the river, and abutting against the crags on the other side. South of the cloister-court was the refectory and other apartments. To the eastward was a group of buildings terminating in a grand house for the abbot, which also bridged the river. All these are now in picturesque ruin, the long corridor, with its vaulted roof supported by a central row of columns with broad arches, being considered one of the most impressive religious remains in England. One of the chief uses to which the Fountains Abbey stone-quarry was devoted was the building, in the reign of James I., of a fine Jacobean mansion as the residence for its then owner, Sir Stephen Proctor. This is Fountains Hall, an elaborate structure of that period which stands near the abbey gateway, and to a great extent atones, by its quaint attractiveness, for the vandalism that despoiled the abbey to furnish materials for its construction. In fact, the mournful reflection is always uppermost in viewing the remains of this famous place that it would have been a grand old ruin could it have been preserved, but the spoilers who plundered it for their own profit are said to have discovered, in the fleeting character of the riches thus obtained, that ill-gotten gains never prosper. RICHMOND CASTLE. [Illustration: RICHMOND CASTLE.]