J. W. Davis— The Valley of the Calder. 503 



mud would be carried further out to sea, before it settled to tbe 

 bottom. This mud has formed the great bed of shale. One feature 

 is particularly noticeable in connexion with the deposits from this 

 old sea, and it is a feature that is usually remarked at a very early 

 period in the researches of young geologists : it is this, that there are 

 an extremely small number of fossils found in the beds of shale or 

 rock. The sandstone may be hammered by the youthful enthusiast, 

 where exposed in a natural escarpment, or in the numerous quarries 

 which occur very abundantly near Halifax, with no better result 

 than tbe acquisition of a fragment of a tree stem or a fossilized 

 impression of a fruit-cone of a tree to which the stem belonged ; 

 whilst the shales, except in a few rare instances, appear to be 

 absolutely devoid of organic remains. This absence of fossil 

 animal remains may probably be accounted for by the intermixture 

 with the shales of a large per-centage of iron, which was deposited 

 at the same time as the mud, and consequently was held in suspen- 

 sion by the water. Most of my readers know, that where the 

 water is tainted with iron, or, as it is frequently termed, is " oankerey," 

 no fish or shells can exist; at any rate, this is the case if the 

 iron is present in considerable quantities. During the Millstone- 

 grit age, or the time at which these rocks were deposited, the waters 

 appear to have been very '-cankerey" indeed; and, as a natui'al con- 

 sequence, fishes and molluscs were either very rare, or they were 

 altogether absent; — only the broken fragments of the stems of trees, 

 brought down by the rivers from the adjoining land, being found, 

 as already said, in these strata. Though, however, these may be con- 

 sidered the general palseoutological characteristics of the strata, on 

 the west and north of Halifax there are two or three exceptions, 

 which may be worth pointing out. On Wadsworth moor, about a 

 mile and a half from Hebden Bridge Station, a shaft was sunk in 

 making a passage through the hill, for the water collected on the 

 moorlands above Widdop to be carried to Halifax. This part is 

 composed of the Third Grits, and at about 300 feet from the surface 

 a bed of limestone occurred, which contained fish-remains, and 

 numerous fossil shells. If any collector would like to gather some 

 of these fossils, they may yet be found on the heap of shale and 

 stones at the mouth of the pit, and will repay a visit. The other 

 sections where fossils may be got, other than plants, are at Wheatley 

 and Ogden, beneath the Eough Eock, but these can only be found 

 by experienced eyes. 



Turning next to the Goal-measures, we find that great changes 

 have taken place. There were still long periods during which the 

 land was under water, and thick beds of shales and sandstone were 

 the result, but the principal feature of this age consisted in the 

 formation of thick and numerous beds of Coal. I will not enter into 

 the question of the formation of Coal, for it is one which has engaged 

 much attention, and about which there are several plausible theories, 

 merely premising, that the coal is the result of the accumulation of 

 large quantities of decayed vegetable matter, which, by pressure and 

 some chemical changes, has been turned to the black carbonaceous 



