A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



whence they were termed ' Yoredale Rocks,' the change from this supposed 

 northern type being considered to take place in the neighbourhood of the 

 great Craven faults. According to Messrs. Hind and Howe the Yore- 

 dales of Yorkshire are the equivalents of the undivided massive limestone 

 of Derbyshire, which splits up in the north into several bands separated 

 by inter-bedded shales. The Pendleside Series they regard as occupying 

 a superior position, and containing a fauna distinct from the Carboniferous 

 Limestone of Derbyshire and the Yorkshire Yoredales. 1 



MILLSTONE GRIT SERIES 



This sub-division lithologically resembles the Pendleside Series, 

 differing chiefly, as the name implies, in the greater prevalence of gritty 

 material, aggregated into bands of considerable thickness separated by 

 black and grey shales. While a definite band of grit (First Grit or 

 Rough Rock) happens to separate the sub-division from the Coal- 

 measures above, no such well marked or persistent bed indicates its 

 junction with the Pendleside Series, to which it is allied in the closest 

 possible stratigraphical manner. 



Conspicuous objects in the landscape, the different bands of grit 

 follow each other in consecutive order with their separating bands of 

 shale, and have been named from above downward : First Grit (Rough 

 Rock or Farewell Rock of the miner), Second Grit (Haslingden Flags of 

 Lancashire), 'Third Grit (Roaches Grit), Fourth and Fifth Grits (Kinder- 

 scout Grits). These constitute in the north and north-east portion of 

 the county grit bands of singular persistency, but traced southward they 

 are found to decrease gradually till around the Pottery and Cheadle 

 Coalfields only the First and Third Grits remain. 



Some distance below the Kinderscout Grits and separated from them 

 by shales there lies an impersistent bed of grit, sometimes known as the 

 ' Yoredale Grit,' which has been regarded in Derbyshire as the base 

 of the series, though avowedly an artificial datum line. 2 



Throughout nearly the whole length of their outcrop the Millstone 

 Grits can be recognized almost at a glance by the distinctive features to 

 which they give rise. The splendid escarpment of the Roaches and 

 ' The Rocks,' the crags of Ipstones and the numerous ' Edges ' Axe 

 Edge, Ladderedge, Brown Edge, Congleton Edge and other less marked 

 but still conspicuous ridges have been carved by denudation out of the 

 various bands of grit whose broad sheets of heather-clad rocks end in 

 rugged crags standing boldly out in the air, while the flanks and valleys 

 lying at their feet have been fashioned out of the interbedded shales. 

 These bold, bare, rocky ridges impressed early writers and seem to 



1 For a full account of the Pendleside Series the reader is referred to the paper by W. Hind and 

 J. A. Howe, ' The Geological Succession and Paleontology of the Beds between the Millstone Grit and 

 the Limestone Massif of Pendle Hill, and the equivalents in certain other parts of Britain,' Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc. Ivii. 347 (1901). 



2 ' The Carboniferous Limestone, Yoredale Rocks and Millstone Grits of North Derbyshire ' 

 (Mem. Geol. Survey), p. 8 (1887). 



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