1848.] FARRER ON INGLEBOROUGH CAVE. 49 



the action of stronger drifts, and do not contain a single fossil to 

 represent the 200 species abounding in the synchronous strata at so 

 short a distance eastward. Continuing the examination still further 

 westward, we see every indication of an approach to those waters 

 which transported into the then seas the materials of which this 

 series is formed. Extreme irregularity prevails ; the coarser por- 

 tions have here been left. In strong contrast with the coarse grits 

 and sands are the fine white clays, the result probably of intermediate 

 action so quiet as to carry but little of such sediment beyond this 

 threshold ; whilst, on the contrary, silt, which here under the stronger 

 aqueous action remained in small proportion and with few subdi- 

 visions, became, as it were, by its longer transport, sorted and sifted. 

 We thus have at Alum Bay a succession of clearly-defined and well- 

 marked strata, the representatives of which from Christchurch to 

 Dorchester, there is reason to believe, are fewer, less distinct, and 

 much entangled. I here merely allude to these questions to show 

 the interest which ground, apparently geologically barren and unat- 

 tractive, may possess when viewed in its larger bearing of ancient 

 physical conditions. To enter upon them fully would require a far 

 more complete survey of this district. 



3. On Ingleboroiigh Cave. By J. W. Farrer, Esq., F.G.S. 



I VENTURE to lay before the Society a plan of the Ingleborough 

 Cave in Clapdale. In Mr. Phillips's paper " On a group of Slate 

 Rocks, &c." published in the Transactions of the Geological Society, 

 second series, vol. iii. part i. p. 12, under the title " Clapham-dale," 

 the dale or valley, of which the cave forms a feature, is described. 

 The " broad depressed cavern" mentioned by him is a little beyond 

 the mouth (A) of the " Old Cave," immemorially known, the extent 

 of which is shown upon the plan. At that time a curtain or barrier of 

 stalactite (a), descending from the limestone roof, was supposed to be 

 rock, but in September 1837, a passage being cut through it, the 

 several galleries and chambers marked upon the plan (fig. 1) were dis- 

 covered . This series of galleries and chambers has at some distant 

 period been the course of the beck or stream which Mr. Phillips no- 

 tices, but the great accumulation of stalagmite on the floor has diverted 

 its course and forced it to work out another channel, and to issue 

 generally through " the broad depressed cavern." 



The rock in which these caves are situated is on the line of the 

 Great Craven Fault, and is the Great Scar Limestone described by 

 Prof. Sedgwick in a paper published in the same Transactions (second 

 series, vol. iv. part i. p. 69). In floods, the "broad depressed 

 cavern," called in the country " Little Beck-head," is not sufliciently 

 large for the body of water, which rushes from the hills above through 

 the fissures and hollow interior windings in the rock ; and it then 

 forces itself a passage through the larger (supposed to be the original) 

 mouth. The cave described on the plan is in its extent wet. On its 

 floor are numerous basins formed of stalagmite from one foot to four 



VOL. V. PART I. E 



