Original Jirlklcs 



THE GEOLOGY OF NORLAND MOOR, 



Nr. HALIFAX. 



By Jas. Spencer. 



The table land of which Greetland and Norland Moors form a par 

 is about three miles in length by from half to three-quarters of a mile 

 in breadth. Its highest part, overlooking the valley of the Ryburne, 

 attains an altitude of about 900 feet above the sea level, from whence 

 it gradually slopes down in an easterly direction, following the dip 

 slope of the strata to North Dean, where it is about 400 feet above 

 the sea. It is bounded on the west by the Ryburne valley, on the 

 north and east by Calderdale, and on the south by West Vale and 

 Greetland valley. It may be termed an outlier of the upper mill- 

 stone grit rocks, and it owes its isolation to the scooping out of those 

 valleys. The rough rock, or upper bed of the millstone grit rocks, 

 forms the surface of the moors, covered lightly by peat and soil, and 

 a few feet of debris. Under that occurs the valuable flag-rock so 

 extensively wrought at Norland and on the flat above Greetland. 

 Then comes a thick bed of shale, which brings us to the third grit 

 series, comprising many beds of grit, shale, and sandstone, the most 

 important being the one in the cutting on this side of Sowerby Bridge 

 station, and one or two exposed on the new railway in the Ryburne 

 valley. Over these sands-tones thin bands of coal often occur. 



The general arrangement of the strata in the hill is very regular, 

 and unaffected by any large dislocations. Fossil plants are frequently 

 met with in quarrying the sandstone beds, especially in the flag rock 

 under the rough rock. I am not aware that the shale beds have 

 hitherto yielded any fossils in this locality, but in other localities the 

 same beds have yielded fossils abundantly. If ever these shales 

 become opened out either by sinking through them or by mining, I 

 have no doubt but that they will be found to be equally fossiliferous. 

 I have been informed that similar grit shales near Ripponden arc 

 highly fossiliferous. 



Having briefly described the strata under the area of the moors, I 

 now wish to call attention to certain beds of sand, clay, gravel, peat, 

 and buried forests, which form the superficial deposits overlying the 

 stratified rocks. If a well be sunk anywhere in the middle of the 

 valley of the Calder below Sowerby Bridge, say at North Dean, after 

 passing through eight or ten feet of fine alluvial sand^ covered hy 

 N. S., Vol. hi., Nov., 1877. 



