168 Dr. Wheelton Hind — The Yoredale Series. 



It would appear that this series is practically absent in the north 

 of Yorkshire, or only represented by a few hundi-ed feet of shale 

 immediately below the Millstone Grit. The officers of the 

 Geological Survey have of late years relegated all the beds to 

 the base of Farey's Grit, called also the Sliale, Yoredale, or Pendle 

 Grits, to the Millstone Grit Series, and they further raise the question 

 ("The Geol. of the Carb. Limest. Yoredale Eocks and Millstone Grit 

 of N. Derbyshire," p. 7; Mem. Geol. Surv.) as to whether the quartz 

 gannister-like sandstones of North Staffordshire should not also be 

 grouped with this division. They argue that the question depends on 

 the condition under which these beds were deposited. If these 

 conditions were marine, then the beds are to remain Yoredale ; 

 if estuarine, to be included in the Millstone Grit. In the absence of 

 fossils they are retained provisionally as Yoredale beds. Now these 

 qnartzose rocks do contain plant-remains in certain localities — Gun 

 Hill, Leek Waste, and Congleton Edge — and may therefore be said to 

 be non-marine, and consequently the Yoredale sandstones of North 

 Staffordshire fulfil the conditions laid down by the Survey for 

 classification as Millstone Grit Series. But the matter is really not 

 quite so simple as all this, for occasional marine bands are to be seen 

 in the shales with bullions which separate some of the gannister-like 

 beds containing a typical marine fauna. Indeed, there are two 

 distinct marine faunas present in the shales, which do not inter- 

 mingle, — one typical of the deposit and the beds above, — the other 

 consisting of species common to it and the beds below, and only 

 very local in its occurrence. 



That which I call the typical fauna of the deposit, and which 

 comes in at this horizon for the first time, is itself a very important 

 one, and differs very markedly and in every particular from the 

 fauna of the Carbonifei-ous Limestone and its equivalents in 

 Wensleydale and Scotland, in which districts no trace of the other 

 group of organisms has been found. 



This series of black shales with sandstones are exposed in the 

 bottoms of the valleys in South-West Yorkshire, at Mossley, 

 Saddleworth, Marsden, and further north at Todmorden, Hebden 

 Bridge, Sabden, and Flashy, and the escarpment of Pendle 

 Hill, in Lancashire at Longridge Fell, and are overlain by the 

 Millstone Grits. I have alluded to the latter sections above, and 

 will merely repeat that this series rapidly thins out to the north, 

 until the mining section at Greenhow Hill shows only 12 feet of 

 limestone and plate between the lowest Millstone Grit and the main 

 mass of limestone. The late J. W. Davis (" West Yorks.," p. 76) 

 says : — " In Upper Wharfedale and Nidderdale there are about 20 feet 

 of shale and dark-coloured limestone between the Lower Limestone 

 and the Kinderscont Grit. The course of the Eiver Nidd above 

 Lofthouse runs in the Lower Scar Limestone. This is seen covered 

 by 4 ft. 6 in. of shale with thin clayey limestones in its upper part ; 

 then follow 6 feet of blue limestone, 14 inches of shale, and 5 feet 

 of black, compact, laminated limestone. Above the laminated 

 limestone the lower beds of the Millstone Grit crop out." 



