397 

 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION : 

 GEOLOGICAL SECTION. 



The annual meeting of the Geological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists' 

 Union was held on Saturday, October igth, in the Tempest Anderson 

 Hall of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society's Museum at York. Dr. 

 Albert Gilligan was elected as President for the ensuing year, and 

 occupied the chair during the meeting. Mr. John Holmes was re-elected 

 as secretary, and the various sectional committees, which it was reported 

 had held no meetings during the year, were reappointed. 



Mr. Holmes brought forward proposals for getting some at least of the 

 committees to work again immediately on the termination of the war. 

 He drew attention particularly to researches which Dr. Wheelton Hind had 

 carried out in the 'zoning' of the shales of the Carboniferous rocks of the 

 I^ibble Valley, from Clitheroe in the direction of Skipton. Originally the dis- 

 trict was surveyed stratigraphically, but the more positive identification 

 of the rocks by the fossils they contained, which had been made possible 

 by Dr. Wheelton Hind's researches in Staffordshire, had been carried out 

 locally by Dr. Hind, and had corrected the maps in some particulars. 

 The result of the researches would shorf ly be published, and Mr. Holmes 

 suggested that the investigation on Dr.l Hind's lines and with his help in 

 the identification of the fossils should be extended over the Craven area. 



Mr. Herbert E. Wroot, secretary of the Yorkshire Geological Society, 

 drew attention to the fact that the Geological Society had, when war broke 

 out, arrangements in hand for a thorough investigation of the Yorkshire 

 rivers on the lines of research which had been developed in America, 

 with results of much interest. A start in Yorkshire was to be made with 

 the Washburn. It was intended that this work should be resumed when 

 the war ended, and he suggested that the researches set afoot by Dr. Hind 

 should be extended over the Washburn \'alley in preparation for the Geo- 

 logical Society's labours, in which it was hoped that the members of the 

 Naturalists' Union and others interested would share. It was decided 

 to present a report to the annual meeting of the Union in fa\-our of these 

 projects. 



Mr. Wilfrid R. Barker gave a short address, in the course of which 

 he said that the great demand for coal during the present war had led to 

 widespread mining activities along the outcrop of the Barnsley Bed coal. 

 Numerous small colliery companies were working it : some by day-holes 

 and others in open workings, and a great amount of coal.had been already 

 won. Although this weathered coal was only poor in quality it answered 

 well for firing boilers, and the workings produced very interesting exposures 

 of the bed for geological study. Mr. Barker showed some admirable 

 lantern pictures of a section exposed near Worsborough Reservoir, which 

 had the interest of being a part of a small fold or anticline, the top of which 

 had been worn off. The coal was about lo ft. thick, but was interrupted 

 by a deposit of mudstone, which from being only an inch in thickness 

 rapidly thickened considerably and was evidently the muddy bed of a 

 stream-course. Along the margin of this interruption a great variety of 

 fossil plants had been discovered. Mr. Barker mentioned that as each 

 different district was opened new associations of plants were discovered, 

 and altogether more than 200 species had been collected by himself in 

 these beds. A number of exceptionally fine lantern pictures was shown 

 of some of the most interesting of these plants, several of which showed 

 the primitive spore-cones and seeds. 



Dr. Gilligan, in a short address, discussed the faulting of the coalfield. 

 Most of the dislocations of the strata were, he showed, due to causes 

 which produced a stretching of the beds, and as gaps were produced they 

 were filled by the letting down of v/edge-shaped masses of the overlying 

 rocks. Yet though the stretch-faults were universal there existed in the 

 anticlines, such as that described by ]\Ir. Barker, evidence that forces of 

 compression had operated. That phase Dr. Gilligan believed had been in 



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