236 ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE NORTHERN PART 
The mountain limestone is, no doubt, much broken by faults, 
some of which are very conspicuous and apparently of great magni- 
tude; but, nevertheless, one of two things must be the case, either 
there exists no toadstone whatever, and the Staffordshire limestone 
is one undivided mass, or else there are no faults of sufficient magni- 
tude to bring it up to the surface. It is, perhaps, more likely that 
the former should be the case than the latter. Another circum- 
stance strikes us very forcibly in Staffordshire, and that is, the 
greater abundance of extraordinary contortions in the beds of lime- 
stone than is generally visible in Derbyshire. Whether this circum- 
stance be an evidence of greater disturbing force, however, or of a 
modified exhibition of it, I am not prepared to say. Along the 
whole of that most lovely valley of the Manifold, from Warslow to 
its junction with the Dove below Islam Hall, these contortions are. 
continually exhibited, but most especially where the river cuts 
through the north end of Ecton hill, a continued succession of 
saddles and curves being there shewn, which make it appear that 
the whole district is puckered, as it were, into small ridges and fur- 
rows running generally north and south, but having others crossing 
them at various angles.—(See diagram). It is probably to this con- 
tinually arched position of the beds that the singular phenomenon 
is due of the sudden engulphing of a brook and its re-appearance 
after a few miles, which takes place in two or three instances in 
this district. The great richness in mineral products, too, of Ecton 
hill, and some other spots, may possibly be partly dependent on the 
fractured state of the rocks. It is remarkable, however, that cop- 
per, which is almost unknown in Derbyshire, should be the most 
abundant metal in many of the mines of iN. Staffordshire. 
The quarries at Waterhouses, half way between Leek and Ash- 
bourne, is another place where the broken and disjointed and vari- 
ously-arched position of the limestone beds may be well seen; and 
indeed hardly any considerable quarry or face of rock can be visited 
without seeing some curve or contortion exposed. Throughout all 
this disturbance, however, the action of some general law regulating 
the direction of the forces, can be traced in the fact that an inclina- 
tion of the beds towards the N. or S. is very rare, almost every dip 
being E. or W. or within at most 45° of those points. 
The large tract composed of the shale and gritstone kas been af- 
fected in the same way as the limestone district, many changes of 
dip, and frequent steep inclinations of the beds, being constantly 
met with, and many great faults, no doubt, existing, whose situation 
is not so obvious. The direction of these inclinations corresponds 
i. ot 
