204 s. A. adamson: the skipton and ilkley railway. 



mouth of the tunnel). Tlie lowermost bed was again the stiff, blue, 

 stonv till, overlaid by line loamy sand, showing bedding planes, some 

 being cross-bedded, this being capped by another clay, the latter 

 bemg probably re-arranged glacial beds. This cutting occasioned 

 considerable outlay from the cost of draining and strengthening the 

 slopes with dry rubble counterposts. The railway was now left for 

 a short time, the cutting being ascended, and a detour made by a 

 long' subterranean passage into the famous Haw Bank Quarry (com- 

 monly called Skipton Rock"). This quarry is worked by the Leeds 

 and Liverpool Canal Company, and the limestone, which is used for 

 iron smelting, road metal, etc.. is taken along a tramway (worked by 

 steel wire ropes from the engine-house at Embsay ) down to a branch 

 of the canal behind Skipton Castle, and there tipped into boats. 

 The section displayed in this immense quarry is of absorbing interest 

 to the geologist, not only from its stupendous size, but also that it 

 reveals so clearly the stratification on the north side of the great 

 Skipton anticlinal. The height of the quarry is 255 feet, and the 

 strata, which are composed of dark grey and blackish limestones, 

 with thm beds of black shale intervening, dip at the western end of 

 the quarry from 40 to 55 degrees W.X.W. Proceeding eastwards, 

 the dip increases until it reaches 80 degrees, that is, nearly vertical. 

 This is one of those majestic examples of geological phenomena 

 never to be forgotten by the beholder. At the south side of the 

 anticlinal ridge of Haw Bank was seen the Skibeden Quarry. Here 

 the same beds of dark grey, blackish compact limestone were 

 observed, precisely similar to those of Haw Bank in composition. 

 It will be remembered that at Haw Bank, just at the other side 

 of the ridge, the beds had a rapid dip to AV.X.AV. Here at 

 S'r^ibeden. the exposed limestone dipped sharply to the S.E., or just 

 in the contrary direction. Nothing could more conclusively prove 

 that here we saw part of the opposite bend of the anticlinal. This 

 is owing to the great disturbances which have altered the original lie 

 of the carboniferous rocks in Craven, the effect of which we see 

 in the compUcated system of faults, known collectively as the Craven 

 Fault. In South Craven the anticlinals bring up the limestones 

 between the shales and grits of the Yoredale and millstone grit 

 series. The synclinals on each side of the valley, forming the hills, 

 are composed of course of the latter rocks. The fact of the anti- 

 clinals usually forming valleys, whilst synclinals form high ground 

 between them, seems at first sight somewhat paradoxical : but, as 

 Topley and others point out, the synclinals, being compressed and 

 compact, are apt to resist denudation, whilst anticlinals, from their 

 being broken up or fissured at the summit, would be readily acted 



Naturalist, 



