97 



completely does all water sink away, that artificial pond* 

 are made for the cattle to drink at in suitable places, and it 

 is a very curious fact, that the only true clay suitable for 

 puddling purposes, occurs in sheltered hollows on the sum- 

 mit of the hills, and this is a true glacial clay. No doubt 

 this clay at one time covered the entire surface of the hill 

 tops, as they are still dotted thickly over with huge drift 

 boulders, or " Calliards," as they are locally called, chiefly 

 of whinstone, black marble, and silurian flags, such as occur 

 in the neighbouring hills northwards. The caverns all 

 appear to have been formed on the lines of main fissures 

 where the limestone has been much broken. The close 

 proximity of the Great "Craven fault," (which runs at right 

 angles to the face of the Langclifl'e Scar in which the Vic- 

 toria Cave occurs), will account for the great extent to which 

 the limestone has been thus fissured. 



It is therefore evident that the surface water in wet 

 seasons, having to find its way through these fissures, from 

 the watershed of a large area, would form great undergi'ound 

 streams, which would wear out these caverns and carry 

 through and into them much detritus from the surface ; and 

 very probably the whole of the drift clays, which have evi- 

 dently been denuded from the surfaces where the boulders 

 now lie, have been thus removed and earned away in the 

 course of the long ages of time which have elapsed since 

 their deposition, during the glacial epoch. 



(2) The evidence to be gathered from, the whole district 

 poiats to a very considerable falling away of the face of the 

 limestone scars during wet seasons and frosts. The day 

 before my visit a mass of at least 100 tons had fallen from 

 above the face of the Victoria Cave, It appears to me that 

 the face of the scar at the cave was formerly at least 80 

 feet in front of its present line, and that this mass must have 

 fallen away, at any rate since the glacial age. The lime- 

 stone about the cave is so much fissured, and so constantly 



