SEDGWICK ON THE MAY HILL SANDSTONE. 



217 



through them. During a short visit to this locahty, in the month of 

 September, I met my friend John Ruthven, who had been some time 

 employed upon the task to which I have before alluded ; and I found 

 that he had already discovered some good characteristic Coniston 

 corals and shells among the watercourses near the top of the pass. 

 We then examined together some broken ground which has now been 

 cleared of wood ; and in several places (especially near a farm called 

 Bowerbank) we had access to the bare rock, which contained well- 

 known fossils (such as the Trinucleus Caractaci, &c.) of the Coniston 

 limestone and calcareous slates. The evidence was therefore now 

 complete. 



Fig. 2. 



Crag. 



Fault, 



1. Coniston limestone and shale. 



2. Coniston flags. 



3. Coniston grits. 



4. Ireleth slates (=Wenlock). 



5. Upper beds of the Great Scar limestone. 



6. Limestone and shale in alternations. 

 7- Millstone grit series. 



The facts here stated may seem too trifling to deserve notice. 

 They show, however, how true, in this part of England, nature 

 continues to her own type ; and they partially help to fill up, by a 

 good symmetrical section, that interval of ten miles, above mentioned, 

 between Helm's Gill and Thornton Beck. In the lower parts of 

 Barbondale, it would be in vain to look for the Coniston beds, because 

 unequivocally newer beds, about the age of the Wenlock shale, are, 

 by the great flexures of Middleton Fells, made to abut against the 

 line of fault. By a great reversed dip the Coniston grits are, how- 

 ever, again brought out on Casterton Low Fell ; and I think it just 

 possible that in the deep water-course on the south side of that Fell, 

 the Coniston beds may be hereafter discovered. 



So far as I could make out from a very obscure section, the lowest 

 group (No, 1) is of very considerable thickness, and is made up of 

 dark shaly beds containing many bands so calcareous as almost to 

 pass into limestone. "Whether there may exist any well-defined bed 

 of limestone near the base of this group (as at Coniston), it is im- 

 possible to tell ; but the calcareous slates just noticed seem to en- 

 croach upon the Coniston flags (No. 2 of this section), which, at the 

 point here described, do not seem to be more than 400 or 500 feet 

 in thickness*. 



* Near Coniston the flags are, I think, full three times the thickness here 

 given. 



