A RAMBLE UP BURNHOPE. I07 



is the one above the Four-fathom, it showed the few feet of 

 the Three-yard, the hmestone below. This was followed, 

 sandstones and shales intervening, by another rather thin 

 lime, the Five-yard ; then by a thicker bed, the Scar Lime- 

 stone ; and then by two very thin ones, the Cockleshell and 

 the Singlepost Limestones. All these were thrown up at a 

 high angle, much greater than the fall of the stream, rapid 

 though that was, so that as I climbed upward on their up- 

 turned edges I came upon the formations in descending order. 

 The apex of the upheaval, or what looked like the apex, was 

 a little beyond the Singlepost Limestone, where my guide 

 pointed out what he called " the pencil bed," indicating that 

 the whin, though invisible, was not far off. Beyond it the 

 same limes appeared, but in the reverse order, and only 

 slightly inclining, so that now I was climbing up through the 

 strata as I ascended the burn. 



It was an intensely interesting spot. I thought of the great 

 mass of superimposed strata lying at first horizontally as 

 deposited. Then of its being gradually tilted upwards to the 

 west by pressure from below. Then the pressure from beneath 

 increases, or perhaps is greatly diminished, thus withdrawing 

 support, and a great crack is started right through the 

 different layers, and, perhaps very slowly, as on a small scale 

 may often be seen in the wall of a settling house, extending 

 north and south for miles. Then a great area of upheaval, 

 again perhaps very gradual, away to the west of the crack, by 

 which the whole mass on that side of the fissure is lifted some 

 five or six hundred feet upwards. But at the edge nearest to 

 the fissure there was extra resistance to the upheaving process 

 on account of friction against the unmoved strata on the other 

 side of the crack. This friction would be very great if the 

 crack was a little off the perpendicular, hading, as the miners 

 say, to the eastwards, and presenting a hanging side towards 

 the rising beds. This would result in a retardation of the 

 layers in the part next to the crack, which, for some distance, 

 would be bent downward, so as to lie at a very steep 

 angle. 



