30 



The Naturalist. 



chairman. Pieces of limestone containing fossils, obtained during th& 

 day, were handed round for the inspection of the members, as were also 

 a large number of slides of the material, full of the beautiful minute 

 fossils which abound therein. These had been mounted for the occasion 

 by the secretary, from material obtained on a former visit. A number of 

 coloured sections of the strata of the district, also prepared by the secre- 

 tary, were hung on the walls. The chairman stated that he had written 

 and published a paper on the geology of the district 40 years ago, which 

 contained a list of fossils drawn up by the late Mr. Samuel Gibson, of 

 Hebden Bridge. Many of the names were crude and rather fanciful, and 

 the sketch of the strata which he had drawn up was by no means to be 

 compared with the elaborate sections drawn by Mr. Spencer, but still he 

 hoped they would afford some little interest as memorials of Mr. Gibson, 

 and in showing what had been done in former times. Mr. B. Holgate, 

 F.G.S., said that he had been much pleased with his visit, and would 

 have been more so but for the rain. He had formed one of a party of 

 four, including Prof. Green, Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Ashworth, who had 

 gone up the valley to the place where the limestone band cropped out. 

 They had obtained plenty of the material, but the bad weather had 

 prevented them from breaking it up to extract the fossils. The secretary 

 had, however, brought a heavy load, and when he had worked up the 

 material, the list of fossils obtained would be recorded in the minutes of 

 the Section. Mr. Tindall, of Huddersfield, offered a few remarks, after 

 which the secretary gave a sketch of the geology of the district. He said 

 so far as he had been able to make out, the harvest of fossils obtained 

 that day would be a good one, and .the list would most undoubtedly have 

 been a very large one had the day been fine. As it was, he had noticed 

 the following species : — Goniatites Gibsoni (a most beautiful little fossil 

 very like an ammonite), G. reticulata, G. Loonyi, G. striatus, G. spiror- 

 bis, Orthoceras, Nautilus, Posidonomya, Modiolopsis and Aviculo-pectens. 

 Perhaps a few words on the physical geology of the district would not be 

 out of place. We are now in the valley of the Calder, which from Hebden 

 Bridge to Todmorden has been scooped out of the Yoredale strata, as 

 have also the deep valleys of the Hebden and Horsebridge Cloughs. The 

 Kinder grit forms the great escarpments overhanging those valleys. 

 Going from the Kinder towards the moor in any direction, we traverse 

 the extensive series of the third grits. These beds are very fossiliferous. 

 A short distance to the west we come to the apex of the Pennine anti- 

 clinal, and the Kinder grit again crops out, facing the west like a great 

 mountain wall, along which the line dividing Lancashire from Yorkshire 

 is carried. The dip slope of the great anticlinal is a gentle one of about 

 one yard in 21 on the Yorkshire side, but on the Lancashire side the 

 rocks dip rapidly, almost standing on their ends for some distance. The 

 consequence of this is, that we meet with the coal strata on the Lanca- 

 shire side in a short distance from the summit of the ridge ; in some 

 places they are said to actually come over the ridge into Yorkshire, but 



