184-6.] SEDGWICK ON THE SLATE ROCKS OF CUMBERLAND. HI 



fragmentary masses, and then tore the whole system of Millam Park 

 bodily from the other rocks of the same age, and carried them full 

 two miles to the south-east of their original strike ; thus producing 

 the second or Greystone House fault, which is marked on the sur- 

 face by the sudden great shift of the Coniston limestone, as indicated 

 in the previous description. My present limits preclude any further 

 details, but the accompanying section will I trust make this short 

 description intelligible. 



3. Section across Black Coomb. 

 S.S.E, N.N.W. 



Hodbarrow Point. Millam Park. Black Coomb. Bootle. 



Fault. Granite. 



The third question I was anxious to solve was this, — Is the Conis- 

 ton limestone continuous, so as only to disappear (along with all the 

 other rocks) under the drifted matter which fringes the south-west 

 coast of Cumberland? Or is it degenerate, appearing only here and 

 there, in discontinuous concretionary masses, before it is finally cut off 

 near the coast ? Judging only by my remembrance of what I saw in 

 1822, and by the colours laid on my map at that time, I should have 

 said that the Coniston limestone was continuous, and that so far from 

 being degenerate at its south-western extremity near the coast of 

 Cumberland, it was much thicker there than in any other part of its 

 range from thence to Shap Wells. From the marshes south-east of 

 Wander Hill to the pastures south-west of Beck Farm (a distance of 

 full two miles), the Coniston limestone group is magnificently deve- 

 loped, having an aggregate thickness more than double that of the 

 same group (including the overlying calcareous slate) in its range 

 through W^estmoreland and a part of Lancashire. There is a great 

 open quarry behind Beck Farm, in thick beds of nearly vertical 

 black limestone with white veins. They form the base of the series, 

 and counting from them to the highest calcareous beds with bands 

 and concretions of limestone, we have a thickness of full 600 feet. 

 Under this limestone is a fine schaalstein passing into porphyry ; its 

 beds are perfectly parallel to the limestone, and for some depth 

 below it contain the well-known Coniston fossils. I think this fact 

 of importance, as it shows the uninterrupted continuity of the por- 

 phyritic and overlying system. At Water Blain the limestone is cut 

 through by a fault, marked a narrow marshy valley, beyond which 

 the limestone is contorted and traversed by thick veins of red oxide 

 of iron. In another quarry the limestone rests on schaalstein, and 

 is partially altered and penetrated near its base by flakes of ser- 

 pentine. 



Before I quit this discussion on the Coniston limestone, I may be 

 permitted to recall attention to the ridge of High Haume (south of 



