274 GEOLOGY. 



border of the great middle deposit of slate rock, with many 

 breaks and twists, from Millom, by Coniston and Windermere, 

 across High Furness and part of Westmorland, to Shap Fells. 

 This represents the Coniston Lime Stone, a formation which excites 

 much interest amongst geologists from being the line of division 

 between two great systems, and from containing fossil remains in 

 great abundance and variety, which may be obtained with little 

 trouble where the rock is exposed above the farm of Dixon Ground, 

 in Church Coniston. Its numerous "faults" and dislocations, 

 shew that it also has suffered very violent treatment from the 

 subterranean forces; and these displacements are especially obvi- 

 ous where it crosses the valleys ; Yewdale, for instance, Winder- 

 mere and the vale of the Kent. 



Brathay Flags. — Superimposed again upon this limestone 

 is a group of similar course and extent called Coniston, or Brathay 

 Flags, which consists mainly of a dark, almost black, stone easily 

 worked into flags. The manner in which the line of cleavage in 

 most of these rocks runs across the line of deposit is well demon- 

 strated in this flagstone, and may be studied to advantage in the 

 roadside wall on the highway from Ambleside to Coniston as it 

 passes through the enclosures above Brathay, where these lines are 

 seen very plaiuly as well as divisions running parallel to the line of 

 deposit, and containing brilliant incrustations of Iron Pyrites, 

 which appear upon the edges of the stones used in building the 

 wall. Tins rock also preserves a few remains of organic life. Re- 

 markable displacements of these two formations and sometimes of 

 the next are exhibited as in Low Furness, Ravenstonedale, and the 

 vicinity of Ingleton. 



Coniston Ghit. — Upon this flagstone rests, in its turn, a 

 formation called Coniston Grit, or Hard Grit, a coarse, hard, 

 tenacious stone, whose structure has enabled to resist the disturbing 

 forces more successfully than most of its neighbours. A similar 

 rock occurs extensively on Howgill Fells and in the country by 

 Sedbergh, towards Kirkby Lonsdale. It has also been hoisted up 

 by enormous disruptions of the carboniferous strata, so as to form 

 the summits of Ingleborough and other hills in that direction. 



