146 MARK : YORKSHIRE AND SCANDINAVIA. 



remains as a fragment, becomes most marked. Lower Palaeozoic 

 and earlier rocks form a large part of Scandinavia and Scotland, and 

 the recent researches of Prof. Lapworth and the Geological Surveyors 

 have given us much insight into the constitution of this old land, 

 fashioned in Lower Palaeozoic times by the development of a set 

 of crust- wrinklings having a general N.E.- — S.W. trend, which gave 

 rise to a highland region running from Northern Russia, through 

 Sweden and Norway, Scotland, and North Ireland, to the site of 

 the present Atlantic Ocean. Sufficient remains of this old region 

 to give us some notion of its original character, for the plications of 

 the rocks and the nature of the metamorphism they have undergone 

 are such as are characteristic of mountain regions, of which repeated 

 and long-continued erosions have left us the basal wreck. That 

 much of this eroded material was washed over the site of Yorkshire 

 was long ago suggested by Dr. Sorby, from an examination of the 

 coarser sediments of the Carboniferous system, and there is no 

 doubt that that great rock-group to which Yorkshire owes so much 

 of its prosperity, and the older portions of which have originated 

 scenery unrivalled of its kind, has been derived from the partial 

 destruction of the old highland region developed by the crust- 

 movements, which gave rise to what is now generally spoken of as 

 the Scandinavian system of folds. 



But not only did these movements furnish us with a source of 

 supply of material for the formation of the massive Carboniferous 

 rocks of the county, but the very site of the county was occupied 

 by a similar set of rocks, folded also in Lower Palaeozoic times, 

 though not to such an extent as the rocks of more northern regions, 

 and planed down at the end of Lower Palaeozoic times to form 

 a nearly even sea-floor, upon which the Carboniferous strata were 

 deposited. 



This floor may be looked upon as the very foundation of 

 Yorkshire, and it is only brought to light where profound dis- 

 turbances have elevated a tract of country far above the level of 

 surrounding regions. 



It is well known that the beautiful Mountain Limestone district 

 in the neighbourhood of Ingleton consists of gently-sloping beds of 

 limestone forming parallel scars, the whole lying evenly upon 

 a planed floor of greatly-folded slate-rocks, which occupy the lower 

 ])ortions of the valleys of Ingleton, Clapham, Austwick, Settle, and 

 Malham. 



An examination of these slate-rocks, which appertain to the 

 Ordovician and Silurian systems brings to light some Scandinavian 

 affinities, for although at the time of their formation, north-western 



Naturalist, 



