his pipe again, and in the momentary flare I could see his big, genial face, the farm-horse, and the two happy maidens. We said ‘Good-night’ to prove each other’s honesty, and after a while the sound of the cart died away, as it went slowly along the windings of the pass. After this I was seldom alone, for I had fallen in with the good folks who had gone over to the feast at Hawes, and were now homeward bound in the darkness. Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in these shadowy places is pleasant after gazing on the dry fell-sides. Just beyond the head of the pass, where the descent to Hawes begins, the shoulders of Great Shunnor Fell drop down, so that not only straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain view. Ingleborough’s flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the sharply-defined scars that encircle them. Lower down the hills are generally rounded. It used to puzzle Dr. Whitaker, the historian of these parts, ‘how, upon a surface which must at first have consisted of angles and right lines only, nothing but graceful curves should now appear, as if some plastic hand had formed the original surface over again for use and beauty at once.’ Then, with the blankest pessimism, he goes on to say that ‘these are among the many questions relating to the theory of the earth which the restless curiosity of man will ever be asking without the hope or possibility of a solution’! The exclamation mark is mine, for I cannot restrain my feelings of astonishment that a learned man writing in 1805 should deny to us the knowledge we have of the action of ice and the other forces of denudation, by which we are able to understand to such a very great extent the agencies that have produced the contours of the Yorkshire mountains. The sudden changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places torrential rains,