1853.] OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 279 
in the cave it appears that, from a certain point of the fissured 
roof, drops have been falling on a single line for above 120 years. 
Turning from the scenery, the anthor entered on a general 
history of the mountain. 1. He shewed that the earliest of the 
strata were, as described by Professor Sedgwick, of the Lower 
Paleozoic ages, and contained marine exuvie, but no fishes. 
2. These were upheaved so as to form many arched elevations — 
parts of a great system of movements which affected also the lake 
district to the west. 3. These great inequalities of surface were 
worn down by long continued oceanic agitations, so as to present 
a nearly uniform plane ; an effect perfectly wonderful, whatever 
amount of marine disturbance we suppose to have been exerted, and 
whatever length of time we allow for its operation. 4. The whole 
area then sank without violence, and continued to sink for a long 
period — first receiving a thick deposit of mountain limestone 
(marble), then a mixed deposit of shales, limestones, and sand- 
stones, then a mass of millstone grit, and finally a great accumu- 
lation of coal measures. ‘The total depression beneath the sea 
from the preceding condition (3) was estimated at one mile. 
5. It was then shewn that a violent convulsive movement, accom- 
panied by enormous fractures, had displaced the sea-bed, and 
produced a great elevation of the country, so that, as compared 
with the lower portions of the strata on the south, west, and 
north, there was in some places a difference of level of the. same 
strata, amounting to 4000 feet. 
6. As a consequence of this great convulsion, and the watery 
agencies consequent upon it, the coal-measures and great part 
of the other strata which covered the limestone floor of Ingle- 
borough were swept away,—an enormous waste,—leaving the 
mountains of Whernside, Ingleborough, and Penyghent, standing 
above the sea, but far lower than the height which the Jand had 
reached during or immediately after the disturbance. 7. The 
extent of /and connected with these hills at the termination of this 
period of convulsion was then shewn, and it was stated that the 
higher parts of this land had perhaps never again been covered by 
oceanic water—so that, in the immense period while the New 
Red, Lias, Oolite, and Chalk were deposited, these hills, not indeed 
in their present form, may have stood perpetually above the 
ancient ocean. Enaliosaurians may have been swimming within 
sight of Ingleborough,— Megalosaurians and Pterodactyls may 
have wandered over its slopes, —many systems of life corresponding 
to many successive ages arose and passed away, on the land and 
in the sea, but of all these there is no record here. At length, in 
the latest tertiary ras, the Glacial crisis arrived, and left positive 
traces of its effects. 
8. The depression of land was then described which occasioned 
the ‘ Glacial Sea’ in the northern zones, and certain phenomena 
were explained which proved the singular fact, that abundance of 
