Vol. 59.] PLIOCENE CAVERN AT DOVEHOLES. 107 



keeper of the Geological Department iu the Manchester Museum, 

 Owens College, who visited the quarry at times when I was 

 unable to go thither, and recorded the discoveries. 



II. The Present Physical Conditions of the District. 



The Victory Quarry, Bibbington (see 6-inch Ordnance Map, Derby- 

 shire, xv, N.W.), in which the discoveries were made, is about half 

 a mile south of Doveholes railway-station and 2j miles north of 

 Buxton. It has been gradually extended eastward from the Buxton 

 road, in the direction of Longridge Lane and Higher Bibbington. The 

 discoveries were made in working the eastern side, at the point A of 

 the map and section (figs. 1 & 2, pp. 106 & 108). The Carboniferous 

 Limestone here forms a rolling plateau, ranging from a height of 1100 

 to 1200 feet above Ordnance-datum, constituting the water-parting 

 between the tributaries of the Goyt, flowing past Chapel-en-le-Frith 

 northward and westward into the Mersey, and those flowing south- 

 ward and eastward to join the Wye, the tributary of the Derwent 

 that flows through Buxton. The quarry lies at a mean level of 1150 

 feet above Ordnance-datum on the western side, and on the eastern 

 at 1187 feet, and has been carried down to about 45 feet below the 

 surface of the limestone. It is on the divide between the Mersey 

 and the Humber. 



The Carboniferous Limestone consists of beds of remarkably pure 

 limestone, dipping westward (see figs. 1 & 2) at an angle of 15° 

 underneath the Toredale Shales, close to the London & North- 

 Western Bailway. These black shales, with subordinate layers of 

 limestone, are faulted against the Yoredale sandstones and grits, as 

 shown in the above-mentioned figures. They form the base and 

 middle of the range of hills eitending southward to Buxton and 

 beyond, the upper portion being composed of shales and sandstones 

 of the Millstone-Grit Series, that rise in Black Edge (in the line of 

 the section) to a height of 1652 feet. The drainage of their eastern 

 slope passes downward until it reaches the limestone at its base. 

 Here it sinks into the rock, through the many swallow-holes 

 which mark the upper boundary of the Carboniferous Limestone. 

 There are no surface-streams in the limestone in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the quarry, which, from its position on the divide, 

 could not, under existing geographical conditions, receive the 

 drainage of the range of hills to the west or from any other direc- 

 tion. The existence, however, of numerous 'swallets' on the 

 divide, as well as in other portions of the Carboniferous Limestone, 

 at a considerable distance from the impervious Yoredale Shales 

 covering the limestone, proves that the limestone did in ancient 

 times receive from the surface a considerable drainage which it no 

 longer gets. Most of these ' s wallets ' are now filled with clay 

 and loam, and some, as in the case of that at Windy Knoll, near 

 Castleton, about 6 miles to the north-east, contain considerable 

 quantities of the remains of Pleistocene mammalia. 



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