SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY OF DERBYSHIRE. 1 
THE MILLSTONE GRIT 
Is the next formation in the ascending order, lying immediately 
above the shale, and forming generally a high, bare tract of moorland 
between the limestone country and the coal-fields, of greater or less 
extent, according to circumstances. It composes some of the greatest 
elevations in the county. Axe Edge, near Buxton, from which four 
rivers take their rise, has an altitude of 1875 feet above the sea, and 
Kinder Scout, and some of the hills in the Woodlands, have probably 
astill greater height. The same general position is preserved by the 
millstone grit, which has been described as belonging to the inferior 
rocks. The hills about Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith dip towards 
the W. and bury themselves in that direction beneath the narrow 
strip of the Cheshire coal-field, while their steep edges or escarpments 
face to the E. overlooking the shale and limestone below.—(See sec- 
tion No. 1). Inthe northern part of the district, the gritstone follows 
the position of the shale, and dips at first from the limestone towards 
the N. but soon becomes nearly horizontal, and stretches away into 
Yorkshire.—(See section No. 2). All the northern corner of the 
county (which goes by the name of the Woodlands) exhibits the cha- 
yacters of the millstone grit to perfection. It forms a large plateau 
at a great elevation, furrowed in every direction by deep vallies, which 
cut right through it and down into the shale below, and thus produces 
a great complicated cluster of high flat-topped hills. These are, for 
the most part, abandoned to their native heather, which clothes their 
sides with its brown and purple covering, while their summits are 
occupied by wild and almost impassable morasses. Lines of dark 
embattled crags and steep precipices of gritstone overlook the valleys, 
producing scenery of a stern and dreary, yet impressive, character.* 
A line of similar moors runs down the E. side of the limestone, be- 
tween it and the Derby coal-field, the gritstone here having an eas- 
terly inclination, which, in a few miles, causes it to plunge beneath 
the latter. On tracing this branch of the millstone grit, however, 
* The view from Ashop Head, the northern extremity of Kinder Scout, 
can hardly be surpassed for wild grandeur, an apparently illimitable bog 
stretching away on the one hand, while on the other you look, from among 
the massy rocks of gritstone, down a precipitous escarpment, on the little 
river Ashop, winding in its narrow dale a thousand feet below, beyond which 
nothing can be seen but moor after moor, alternately rising and falling, like 
the swell of a mighty sea. 
