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53. — Notes on the Glacial Deposits and other interesting 

 Geological Features of North Yorkshire. [Abskact.] 



By Edward Lovett. 



(Read October 14th, 1885.) 



During a recent visit to Yorkshire, I made a few rough notes 

 on some of the chief points connected with the Geology of the 

 locaUties I was in ; and I have collected these, together with a 

 few extracts from the work of one of our earliest geologists, whose 

 remarks upon the same features of the same locality are some- 

 what curious when considered from the position to which later 

 geologists have raised our knowledge. 



The features to which I refer, as forming the chief subject of 

 this paper, are the glacial deposits of Yorkshire, both on the 

 coast and also inland. My first acquaintance with these was 

 made at a charming spot known as Wensley Dale, situated in the 

 west of Yorkshire, near to Lancashire and Westmoreland. 



This splendid locality is a series of hills and dales, moors and 

 woods, rivers and waterfalls innumerable. I do not think that 

 I have ever seen more romantic scenery than I did in this 

 country of gigantic valleys, for this is not too exaggerated a 

 term to use, the chief dale being thirty-six miles in length. 



The river which drains this locality is the Ure, and its 

 numerous tributaries, known as becks, are an interesting and 

 beautiful addition to the landscape ; for it is quite the exception 

 to find a level or slow-running stream ; on the contrary, their 

 beds are filled with rocks and boulders, the strata over which 

 they flow are shelving and ledge-like, and their course is so 

 winding and often so steep that they present an almost un- 

 interrupted series of cascades and rapids throughout their whole 

 length. Even in summer, when the water is low, the roar of 

 these cascades can be heard for some distance ; but in the 

 winter, when they become flooded, or when there is a spate, 

 then" appearance and sound is really grand. 



The ranges of hills, too, that form these dales ai'e of a con- 

 siderable height. I ascended one of these, called Pen Hill, 

 which is 1800 feet above the sea-level, and it was from this 

 point that I was able to obtain a general view of the surrounding 

 country. Being especially interested in glacial phenomena, I 

 naturally paid most attention to this subject; and I noticed 

 that along the valleys were large undulating stretches of pasture- 

 land, somewhat irregularly distributed, and contrasting in a 

 marked degree with the flanks of the adjacent hills ; for whilst 

 the latter were rugged crags, sparsely covered with poor sedgy 

 grass and heather, and capped with extensive moorland, the 



