CONISTON GRITS AND FLAGS. Ill 



Upper Coldwell Beds comprise a series of gritty flags with UTono- 

 graptus colonus, Actinocrinus pulcher, Ceratiocaris Murchisoni, Pliacops 

 obtusicaudaius, Orthoceras tenuicinctum, etc.^ 



The term Furness Grits was formerly used by Sedgwick for the 

 Coniston Grits ; ^ and the term Windermere Rocks used by Daniel 

 Sharpe included the rocks now known as the Upper Coniston 

 group, and was generally equivalent to the Blawith Slate of J. G. 

 Marshall.^' 



Fossils have been found in the Coniston Grits at Helmside near 

 Dent, in the cleaved flags of Ireleth and Broughton Moor, near 

 Ambleside, and on Torver Moor.* At Horton-in-Ribblesdale, north 

 of Settle, the beds are known as the Horton flags. Here fossils 

 are uncommon, with the exception of species of Orthoceras and 

 MonograptiisJ' In the vale of Troutbeck the Coniston Flags have 

 been very extensively worked ; and at Applethwaite Common they 

 are succeeded by higher strata belonging to the same series, to 

 which Sedgwick gave the name " Sheerbate Flags."'' 



The Sheerbate Flags just mentioned (the Shear bed of D. Sharpe) have been 

 described by John Phillips and Sedgwick. The former geologist, referring to the 

 thick slate dug near Horton-in-Ribblesdale, remarks that in consequence of the 

 oblique intersection of the laminre of stratification and cleavage, these slates 

 generally break with edges bevelled on one side, and are called "Sheerbate 

 stone." Sedgwick observes that "bate" is the term applied to lamina; of 

 cleavage.'' The Sheerbate beds are worked on Torver Moor. As Prof. Flughes has 

 remarked, where the bedding and cleavage nearly coincide, the beds form good 

 flags ; where the cleavage makes a considerable angle with the bedding, they split 

 along the cleavage.** 



Sedgwick classed the Horton flagstone with that at Coniston, and grouped with 

 them the stone at the flag-quarries of Studfield, Dryrigg, and Moughton Fell. In 

 the Dryrigg quarries calcareous or ferruginous concretions disfigure the flagstones ; 

 and not unfrequently they are in the condition of a light porous mass (commonly 

 called "rotten-stone"), from which the calcareous matter has almost entirely 

 disappeared.^ 



BANNISDALE SLATES. 



This division takes its name from a dale between Windermere 

 and Shap, some distance east of Ambleside.'" 



The Bannisdale Slates are described by Mr. Aveline as con- 

 sisting of sandy mudstones divided by thin bands of hard sandstone 

 and occasional beds of grit. The beds sometimes exhibit false- 

 bedding and ripple-marks. The sandy mudstones are much jointed 

 and roughly cleaved, never making good slates, but often large 

 rough slabs, which are quarried for paving- or building-stones. 



1 Marr, Q. J. xxxiv. 882. 2 Q. J. ii. 106. 3 Proc. G. S. iii. 603. 



* See Explanations of Sheets 98 N.E. and S.E. (Geol. Survey). 

 ^ West Yorkshire, by J. W. Davies and F. A. Lees, edit. 2, p. 27. 

 ^ Harkness and Nicholson, Q. J. xxiv. 298, 300, 521. 



' T. G. S. (2), iii. 16, 472. « G. Mag. 1S67, p. 356. 9 Q. J. viii. 51. 



" W. T. Aveline and T. M'K. Hughes, in Explanation of Sheets 98 N.E. 

 and S.E. (Geol. Survey). 



