700 MR. J. E. MAER AITD DE. H. A. NICHOLSON" 



Spengill. 



The existence of an anticlinal in the neighbourhood of Sedbergh 

 was long ago described by Professor Sedgwick, and as a result of 

 this fold we meet with beds of the Stockdale-Shale series in many 

 of the streams in the valley of the Eawthey, on the north side of 

 the anticlinal. By far the most complete of these sections is exhi- 

 bited in a stream which runs down from Spengill Head in a southerly 

 direction towards the farm of High Haygarth, about 5 miles east of 

 Sedbergh, on the road to Kirkby Stephen. We shall speak of this 

 stream as Spengill, a name which is more euphonious than that by 

 which the stream is designated on the map of the Ordnance Survey. 

 About 2 miles north of High Haygarth the main stream coming 

 from the north is joined by a feeder from the north-west, and at 

 the point of junction of the two streams a cart-track crosses a little 

 ford. Above this an admirable exposure of the Stockdale Shales is 

 afforded by a deep gully, and still further up in the bed of a shal- 

 lower valley. A few yards below the ford a hard calcareous grit, 

 one foot in thickness, was first pointed out to one of us by Professor 

 Hughes ; it occurs in a weathered exposure on the heathery right 

 bank of the stream, by tlie side of the cart-track, and here fossils 

 can readily be procured from it. In the Woodwardian Museum 

 Cornidites. 



Orthis protensa, Sow. 

 biforata, Schloth. 



Strophomena siluriana, Bav. 

 Meristella crassa. Sow. ? 



are XDreserved from this bed. The first four of these are found in 

 the AshgiR Shales. This grit-band is succeeded by several feet of 

 leaden-blue, cleaved, non-laminated mudstones, with abundance of 

 PJiyUojwra Eisingeri, M'Coy, and Myelodactylus, sp. They are 

 quite similar to the Ashgill Shales of other areas, and we believe 

 that both these shales and the grit are referable to that horizon. 



Some little distance above the ford a very hard limestone band, 

 6 inches thick, is exposed on the right bank of the stream just above 

 water-level. It contains a few Crinoids, and we would take this as 

 the base of the Stockdale Shales and as the equivalent of the Atrypa- 

 flexuosa band. The section of the Stockdale Shales of Spengill is 

 given in fig. 12, where this bed is marked A« 1. 



Aa 2. Immediately above this limestone are black, crushed shales 

 with Climacograptus normalis, Lapw., and Monograptus revohitiis^ 

 Kurck, and they pass into a series of greyish-black, very fissile 

 shales, much stained with ferruginous matter, and crowded with 

 Graptolites. These shales are seen on both sides of the stream. 

 These beds dip at an angle of about 60° to the north, and the 

 direction of dip is maintained by the overlying beds, though its 

 amount becomes less in the upper portions of the Stoekdale-Shale 

 series. There is a thickness of at least 25 feet of the blackish 

 shales, and as the dip is fairly constant it does not appear that the 

 beds have been repeated. The fossils in these shales are : — 



Monograptus revolutus, Kurck. Dimorphograptus confertus, Af<:-^. 



tenuis, Portl. Swanstoni, Lapw. 



attenuatus, HopJc. Diplograptus vesiculosus, Nick. 



Sanderson!, Lapw. modestus, Lapw. ? 



