occurring in Lancashire. 269 



*' [We are obliged to the very ingenioii)< Dr. Wilkinson for 

 the following chart and description of the strata in the 

 county of Lancaster ; which, though it is a trespass upon 

 our usual plan, we shall venture to insert in our Report 

 . without any other apology than the singular importance 

 of the subject; and we earnestly recommend it to our 

 correspondents to pursue a plan so happily begun. A 

 similar history of the strata in all the counties of England 

 would be an invaluable treasure. It would enable agri- 

 culturists, as well as geologists, to collect most important 

 facts, and draw many practical inferences. They would 

 learn with precision to adapt their crops to the nature 

 of the soil ; and in many cases they would be able to as- 

 certain whether a cheap corrective of any particular soil 

 coLild not be procured, either at a moderate depth from 

 its surface, or from lands that lie contiguous. — Ed."] 



Lancashire appears to consist of a regular succession of 

 strata of different kinds of rock which compose the lase (or, 

 as it may be termed, the hone) of the country; whose re- 

 spective limits may be ascertained with tolerable precision, 

 and arranged in various districts. In these divisions of the 

 country, although extreme accuracy cannot be expected, 

 (from the rock of one division occasionally encroaching 

 upon the limits of the other.) yet the general conclusions 

 will be found to beJGst. 



\. If you place before you a map of Lancasliire, and 

 draw a line nearly east and west through Cartmell and Ul- 

 verstone, the whole district north of it is a mountainous 

 country, whose rocky hills are universally of that kind of 

 stone which is by naturalists denominated schistjis ; and 

 from its component parts occurring in various proportions, 

 has obtained the different names of slaie, ic/dnsiune, blue 

 rag, trapp, &c. 



In this district there is neither freestone nor Umestove, 

 except a vein of the latter which lies in a crack or fissure of 

 the blue rocks, (by miners termed a dyke,) and runs across 

 the country from east to west, near Contiistone Fells. 



II. If another line be drawn nearly parallel to the former, 

 a fev,- miles north of Lancaster, the base of the whole di- 

 strict included betwixt tliem is limestone, immense rocks of 

 which raise their gray heads above the fertile land at their 

 feet. Such are VVarion Cragg, Hampsfield Fell, and the 

 rocks of vSilvcrdale and Kcllet. Large blocks of granite, 

 mostly of a round form, are frequently to be met with on 

 '.he suiface of the earth in the lltncstone (and perhaps in 



the 



