12 pke!51di:xt's addiiess. 



Stanhope Burn is a rather deep ravine, running northwards 

 from the main valley of the Wear. Formerly both banks were 

 well covered with trees and brushwood, but of late much of the 

 eastern side of the burn has been extensively quarried for lime- 

 stone, as the Great Limestone is well exposed and advantageously 

 situated for that pm*pose. The increased demand for limestone 

 in recent years for iron-smelting purposes, and the exhaustion or 

 diminution of the supply fi'om the same bed at Frosterly and 

 Bollihope has driven iron manufacturers, and others requiiing 

 limestone, further up the valley, to the gi'eat disfigiirement of 

 portions of Stanhope Burn and neighbourhood. Xear the west- 

 ern extremity of the village the Great Limestone is quai'ried on 

 the Fell Side to nearly the full thickness of the bed, which is 

 more than seventy feet in pei-pendicular section. The visitors 

 on this occasion, after searching in vain for fossils on the fresh- 

 fractured and recently-quarried surfaces, examined the top of the 

 section, and were much gratified by being able to observe that 

 the uppermost parf of this bed of limestone was covered with a 

 thick deposit of Boulder-clay ten or twelve feet in thickness. 

 "Wherever this clay had been removed the upper surface of the 

 limestone was most distinctly polished and rubbed down and 

 scratched, the general dii-ection of the scratches and markings 

 being in the direction of the valley and the slope of the ground, 

 scratches in cross direction do^vn wards and onwards being on 

 many parts of the surface distinctly \-isible. The elevation of 

 this Boulder-clay is not much less than one thousand feet above 

 the present sea-level. Another special point of interest in these 

 (j[uarnes is the well-exposed section of some mineral veins which 

 have been cut through in the process of quarrying, and as the 

 limestone is much deteriorated and metamoii)hosed by the pas- 

 sage of the veins, large masses of vein-stuff as it is called, are 

 left standing boldly forward, and allow the geologist and others 

 a favourable ()i)portunity of examining the structure of mineral 

 veins and their contents in broad day light. Interesting speci- 

 mens of galena, cidc-spar, fluor-spar, and (quartz were soon col- 

 lected. Mucli fiuthcr up the bum the next object of interest 

 was the exposed portion of the large fissure, the lower part of 



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