Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1867).djvu/54

38 it looks much less, for as usually happens in climbing hills, the highest part cannot he seen from the bottom, and we reach several successive ridges, each with a craggy edge of gritstone, only to find that there is another terrace to cross and another ridge to climb before the real highest is gained. All down this sloping bank the fallen rocks are scattered, rounded masses of fine-grained gritstone, so soft in texture, that it crumbles away easily into a silvery-grey powder, which is often scattered over the bare turf, the micaceous particles glittering in the sunshine; and from the summit crag all down the bank the heather sweeps (brown for ten months of the year, bright purple for two), thick-swelling over the terraces and in the hollows, stunted and scraggy amongst the rocks and where the soil is thin. The three kinds of heath are all here in plenty, and in July the Ericae are already in flower whilst the Calluna still remains in bud, and there are Vaccinium myrtillus and Empetrum nigrum scattered amongst them, and Eriophorum vaginatum and feathery tufts of Nardus waving in the mountain breezes, and scattered clusters of Aira flexuosa, conspicuous by its bright red stems and silvery brown panicles. At the bottom the furze bushes and the foxgloves grow tall and fine, but they stop before we reach the higher levels; and the slopes and hollows are filled with bright-green forests of Pteris, which grow up to form intertangled thickets in the late autumn, and sometimes with Blechnum, and the lady-fern, and Lastrea oreopteris scattered amongst it. The damper spots are spongy with mosses, Hypnum fluitans, Polytrichum commune, and Sphagnum, ranging in colour from deep red to bright green, with pale green cushions of Leucobryum and Aulacomnion palustre, and amongst them Drosera rotundifolia, Carex ampullacea, Eriophorum angustifolium, and the clustered sword-like leaves of Narthecium. The streamlets which issue from the hill-side ripple noisily down their shallow, stony channels, or contract and sink down, and are hidden for awhile beneath overhanging grass and rushes. The principal mosses of the well-heads are Hypnum condensatum, H. cuspidatum, Bartramia fontana, and Bryum pseudo-triquetrum, the first brownish, the others pale green, or the last often brightly tinged with red. Amongst them Chrysosplenium