310 Note on the Soil below the Peat on Moughton Fell. 



so common as the others. Many of the grains showed clear 

 secondary quartz on the borders. No perfectly clear grains 

 have been seen. 



The felspar was clouded and the type could not be de- 

 termined. The mica was almost entirely muscovite, though 

 a few flakes of green mica also occur. 



Material < -jj in. only differs from that described above in 

 having a much greater proportion of heavy minerals present 

 and the somewhat more pronounced angularity of the quartz 

 grains. 



Heavy Minerals. — These were separated with a SoUas 

 bottle and Thoulet's Solution having a specific gravity of 2-8o. 



Zircons make up over go per cent, of the separation, with 

 tourmaline and rutile next in order and about equal in quantity. 

 The rest was made up of ilmenite, limonite, magnetite, anatase, 

 epidote, garnet, green }iornbleiide, sphene and monazite. 



The whole assemblage of rock fragments and mineral 

 species is such as could have been derived from the grits, 

 sandstones and shales of the Carboniferous System, with 

 some additions from the older rocks of the district, the slaty 

 fragments being evidence of this. It is not such as could have 

 been yielded by the decomposition of limestones. Some of 

 the separation < 77V i^^- was washed by decantation to free it 

 from the still finer particles and the washings allowed to settle 

 for 24 hours, in which time the liquid had almost cleared itself 

 being only slightly turbid. An examination of these washings 

 in the same manner as that described above proved it to be 

 simply a case of finer sub-division — in short it was rock flour not 

 clay, the mineral species being readily determined with a high 

 magnification. For comparison with this, some of the material 

 found in the crevices of the limestone round Moughton Fell^ 

 which I have elsewhere suggested had been washed out of the 

 coarser sand — was examined. This also proved, as expected, 

 to be rock flour, with onl}/ a slight admixture of clayey 

 particles. 



Another interesting comparison was also made. In some of 

 the chambers which open out from the bottom of Gaping Ghyll 

 large accumulations of a fine earthy substance are found. 

 Some of this I obtained when down the Ghyll some years ago. 

 and subjecting this to the same treatment as that described 

 above found it to be similar in all respects (except that it 

 contained very little ferruginous material) to that in the 

 crevices and the washings. Now the surface of the land round 

 Gaping Ghyll is covered with glacial drift, and it would seem 

 that the rock flour found in these chambers has been yielded 

 by the resorting and washing of such drift which is chiefly of a 

 gravelly or sandy nature. 



The explanation of the layer of ' iron pan ' is not difficult 



Naturalist, 



