from Penigent to Kirkbi/ Stephen. 89 



section are extremely obscured by morass ; but we have, I think, evidence 

 enouo'h to show — that a five-inch coal (breaking out about 100 feet above the 

 twelve-fathom limestone) is subordinate to the great upper shale (No. 12.), 

 which is here very largely developed, — and that a second bed of four-inch 

 coal, about 200 feet above the preceding, is subordinate to the alternating- 

 beds (No. 14.) above the frst millstone grit. The evidence for this arrange- 

 ment may be considered obscure; but it is at least made probable by the struc- 

 ture of the nearest mountains of the chain. 



Descending from Baw Fell top to the head of Uldale (after crossing a region 

 of thick morass), we meet with magnificent sections of a great series of beds 

 commencing- with the twelvefathom limestone. Under this limestone the 

 coal bed (No. 10. 6.) has been partially worked. We then cross a series of 

 cherty beds, analogous to those on the same parallel in the Arkendale and 

 Swaledale sections : and further down the torrent is a great precipice (com- 

 posed of the four fathom limestone, resting on the gritstone bands and thick 

 shales of No. 8.), over which the waters shoot in a single plunge, and form 

 one of the grandest falls in the carboniferous chain*. Below the fall is one 

 of the finest gritstone quarries of the chain (No 8. a.) ; and a few hundred 

 yards further down the valley we find great masses of highly inclined and 

 dislocated limestone, connected with the range of the Craven fault. 



The phenomena, last described, are a little to the west of the line of section, 

 which at Uldale Head makes its nearest approach to the greywacke region. 

 Thence it ranges over Swath Pell, to the top of Wildboar Pell, through a 

 country almost buried under turf bog and alluvial soil. The top of Swath Pell 

 appears to belong to the same group (No. 15.) as the top of Baw Pell, but it 

 does not quite reach the same elevation. 



At the top of Wildboar Pell we have just a trace of the group (No. 16.) ; but 



* In all chains of mountains composed, like those I am describing, of horizontal strata in very 

 different degrees of induration, waterfalls are necessarily abundant. The harder groups have an 

 obvious tendency to form terraces over which the waters break with a violence proportioned to the 

 nature of the descent. The steep sides of the hills are, however, often composed of solid beds of 

 sandstone or limestone, resting on thick masses of soft, incoherent shale : and when such combina- 

 tions cross the direction of a mountain stream, they almost always produce an overshot fall. For, 

 had the inferior shales ever projected so far as to produce a gradual descent, they must soon have 

 given way to the friction of the water, till they arrived in such a position as to be protected from 

 its action. And even when removed from the direct effects of erosion, they often continue to ex- 

 foliate so rapidly, that the hard superincumbent beds form a projecting ledge, over which the waters 

 leap at once into an inferior basin. In this way the great waterspout of Hardraw Scar commences 

 in the black marble group, and plunges into a basin of the shales subordinate to No. 2. These 

 appearances are so very common and obvious as perhaps hardly to require notice. 

 VOL. IV. — SECOND SERIES. N 



