236 Yorkshire Naturalists at Kirkby Stephen. 
the workings extended a mile and a quarter. In days gone 
by, before the Eden Valley line was opened, a flourishing 
trade was done, as this colliery practically supplied all Edenside 
north of Appleby, as well as all Swaledale and not a little of 
Upper Teesdale. A gentleman who left the place forty- 
seven years ago, and was paying his first return visit at the 
time we were there, said he well remembered as a boy that 
thirty or forty carts would often arrive during the night in 
order to catch an early turn on the following morning to load 
coal away for the Eden valley. 
At present there are only five men employed, and the 
workings seem to be solely for the purpose of supplying those 
very inaccessible places in Upper Swaledale which are now 
shut off from all reasonable access to a railway. The coal is 
won by a drift into the hillside. Much water was issuing from 
the drift, but we were told it was from the feeders tapped in the 
course of driving into the coal and not from the coal seam itself. 
From this point a bee-line was taken to Birkdale Tarn, but 
the boggy nature of the ground, the deep water-worn valleys 
and the gulfs of wasting peat made the track very far from 
that of a bee-line. The numerous deviations, however, enabled 
us to observe many physical features of great interest. 
At Raydon’s Seat, over which there is a confluence of 
several fell streams, the extremely soft shales of the Upper 
Yoredales have been deeply cut back, and the cutting is rapidly 
going on. Near by was a Stigmaria a yard or more in length. 
Along the route several exposures of Ganister were noted, 
but the quality was somewhat uncertain. Whether the stains 
were from peat percolations or were those of iron could not 
be determined on the spot. 
Near Birkdale Tarn were some very colossal contorted 
blocks of grit, with the lamine practically U-shaped. The 
tarn itself is a considerable sheet of water standing high up 
on the hillside, on what may, for want of a better term, be 
called a terrace, and extends right to the edge of the declivity, 
at the bottom of which is Birkdale. It seems to rest on a 
peaty foundation, and receives a considerable influx of water, 
far more, in fact, than appeared to leave it at the outflow. 
The remainder of the excursion was spent partly on the York- 
shire side and partly on the Westmorland side of the border. 
Nateby Common was crossed, and one of the innumerable 
faults was inspected. The fault shows a gap from a few inches 
to two or three yards in width. Dislocation appears to have 
been considerable and with great force. The Underset and 
its shales, as well as the Main Limestone on one side, have 
been violently crushed, and the cleavage altered to a vertical 
plane. On the opposite side the rock seems to be the Main 
Limestone, and gives considerable evidence of anticlining. 
Naturalist , 
