176 



The Natuealist. 



and Pannal. The old castle of Knaresbro' stood upon the permian 

 formation, which lies unconformably upon a bed of massive but rather 

 soft dark red rock, of a gritty nature, but whether it belonged to the 

 millstone grit or not he could not say, from so brief an examination. 

 Following the line of the permian escarpment along the banks of the 

 river Nidd, Grimbald's Crag was reached, which consists of a great mass 

 of magnesian limestone, resting unconformably upon a bed of pebbly grit 

 belonging unmistakeably to the millstone grit series. Between the 

 permian and the millstone grit the great coal formation generally lies, 

 but in the neighbourhood of Harrogate that formation is entirely absent. 

 It was the generally received opinion that the coal formation of Yorkshire 

 was once continuous with that of Durham and Northumberland, as 

 undoubtedly it was with that of Lancashire. If such was the case, there 

 must have been a great interval of time between the deposition of the 

 coal-measures and the formation of the permian rocks, during which 

 mighty disturbances took place, and the coal formation was swept off the 

 grit rocks from Yorkshire to Durham. The evidences of these disturb- 

 ances abound in this neighbourhood. The Yoredale rocks, for instance, 

 which occupy a space about two miles broad by four miles long, stretching 

 south-west from Harrogate to Pannal, were quite out of place. They had 

 been subjected to enormous pressure, folded and contorted in all manner 

 of ways, and thrust up between the grit rocks to a level with them. At 

 Beckwith quarry, near Beckwith House, the effects of the upheaving and 

 disturbing forces could be plainly seen, for the rocks were folded and 

 contorted into a series of anticlinal and synclinal curves and broken 

 up into fragments. The spa wells of Low Harrogate most probably owe 

 their existence to the same causes. The Yoredale rocks abound in 

 fossiliferous beds, and wherever these crop out at the surface in low 

 ground, and water oozes from them, the decomposition of the fossils gives 

 rise to sulphurous and other mineral springs. The great number of 

 mineral springs which occur in the Bog Fields is evidently due to the 

 peculiarly folded nature of the rocks there. The rainwater sinking into 

 the upturned edges of those folds, and percolating through the fossilife- 

 rous beds, which contain a large amount of sulphur and other minerals, 

 oozes out in the Bog Fields as mineral springs. In the Vertebrate 

 Section ]\Ir. Lister reported as follows : — In a quick walk from Pannal to 

 Harrogate, fourteen resident and four migratory birds were noticed. Of 

 these, four were not noted in the longer excursion to Pateley and the 

 moors around, viz., magpie, jackdaw, lesser redpole, and swallow. Of 

 resident birds at Pateley Nidderdale, 31 were observed, the most 

 important being the sparrow hawk, merlin, carrion crow, grey wagtail, 

 curlew, stone chat (a partial migrant), golden plover, red grouse, lapwing, 

 snipe, and mountain linnet. Of spring migrants seven were noticed — the 

 whinchat, willow warbler, redstart, blackcap, tree pipit, sand martin, 

 and ring ousel ; of other animals — the viper, short-tailed field vole, and 

 long-eared bat. — W. D. R. 



