532 MR. P. F, KENDALL ON A SYSTEM OF ' [ Aug. 1902, 
delta is found at Hell Hole or Holme Bank, near Castleton. It 
has been much cut into by the Esk and its tributaries, but at 
its termination at Hell Hole it extends quite across the valley, 
except for a narrow gorge-like gap cut by the river through hard 
rock. There is not much to distinguish this diversion from that 
produced by a moraine, except the form of the gravel-mass. The 
surface-level of the delta is about 525 or 550 feet. 
It is quite possible that an ice-dam obstructed portions of the 
lower valley of the Esk long after the stage represented by the 
Glaisdale moraine; but no definite evidence would remain, as the 
morainic barriers have not, like the Lealholm and Glaisdale moraines, 
any gap below the top level of the gorges cut by the Esk in evading 
them. The Stonegate valley presents some features of exceptional 
interest, which belong apparently to a transitional stage between the 
high-level and the beginning of the low-level phases of Lake Eskdale. 
The head of this valley at Tranmire has already been referred to, 
but not its intermediate course nor its outfall. 
At the lower end of the Tranmire Slack, from its confluence with 
Hardale Slack the valley is excavated through a flattened floor of 
gravel, which forms a very notable terrace, especially on the eastern 
side of the valley—or rather a pair of terraces one above the other. 
Their structure is admirably displayed in the cuttings of a railway, 
partly made and then abandoned. The lower terrace about the 
village of Stonegate is a shelf of hard sandstone in which the stream 
has cut a splendid gorge, but just above where the road to 
Whitby crosses the stream, the old railway-cuttings begin, and they 
show about 30 feet of very coarse gravelly clay, containing so many 
fragments of Upper Liassic shale as in parts to make upa large pro- 
portion of the mass. Blocks of Jurassic sandstone, rounded, sub- 
angular, and angular, are abundant ; some attain a length of 3 or 4 
feet. Among the stones are many foreign to the district, of which a 
list has been published in the Report of the Erratic Blocks Committee.? 
The most noteworthy fact is the comparative rarity of Carboniferous 
rocks, and the abundance of Magnesian Limestone with botryoidal and 
otherconcretionary structures. These gravels continue up the valley 
above Low Whin. A second terrace at about 575 feet shows a 
marked rise as it runs up the valley. 
The explanation of these features which seems to me at present 
most satisfactory, is that they were produced as a kind of marginal 
delta between the hillside on the west and the ice-margin on 
the east of the valley. The phase seems to coincide with the 
stage when the Lealholm moraine was being formed. The ice- 
margin then swept round the angle of Lealholm Moor, and past 
Hole’-i’-th’-Ellers to the terminal moraine. The gravelly material, 
very imperfectly washed, was laid down alongside the ice in the 
Stonegate valley, while the flowing water cut a marginal shelf in the 
face of the hills overlooking Eskdale. 
1 Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1899 (Dover) p. 400 & 1900 (Bradford) p. 345. 
