64 REVIEW: ROCKS OF EWCROSS, DUFTON, AND SHAP. 
examined the rocks themselves any more minutely than can be done 
in the field. 
For instance, he tells us that the calcareous rocks seen north of 
the falls in Shap Wells Gill are metamorphosed Cambrians, ‘probably 
about twice the age’ of the Coniston Limestone proper; whereas 
this Lower Coniston Limestone is recognisable at many points in 
Westmorland, and’ contains the same fauna as the Upper, from 
which it is separated only by some rhyolitic lavas, etc. Again, he 
states that the rock quarried at Twistleton Dale House, near 
Ingleton, is ‘simply a brecciated thrust fault’; but he does not 
profess to have made any careful examination of its character, and 
{r. ‘T. Tate, from a microscopical study of the same rock, ha 
recently shown that it is a volcanic tuff containing detritus from 
several distinct sources. ‘The evidence on which the author bases 
is theory of the structure of the district seems to be vitiated 
throughout by want of attention to such points as these, and this is 
the more to be regretted, since he has evidently made a very close 
survey of most of the ground he describes. 
The details of field-evidence are not easily followed, for, though 
there are frequent references to a plate of sections, our copy 
contains no such plate. The author’s test-section is in Crummach 
Dale ; and here, at Austwick Beck Head, he seems to have missed 
t 
springs. The rocks underlying this undoubtedly belong to the 
Coniston Limestone, as might have been found by tracing them 
eastward up Moughton Sike, where they are richly fossiliferous. 
In Norber Sike, so far as we can gather, the author mistakes for the 
conglomerate one of the ashy beds in the Coniston LAmeslone 
series ; Or so it appears from the mention of a ‘cap of felstone trap.’ 
On this latter point, however, we fail to understand the author, for 
he elsewhere makes the statement that ‘ there are no contemporaneous 
traps in either series below the Tarrannons.’ Were it not for the 
context, we should suppose dz/ow to be a misprint for above ; but it 
is clear that the nature of the rocks met with has always been judged 
vaguely by their appearance in the field.. The suggestion of a meta- 
morphic origin for mica-trap dykes could not have come from any 
geologist who had ever placed a slice of one of these rocks under 
the microscope. 
While acknowledging the boldness of Mr. Balderston’s ideas and 
the amount of observation embodied in his paper, we cannot admit 
that he has thrown much light upon the difficult questions involved 
in the structure of this interesting tract of the older rocks.—A.H. 
Naturalist, 
