240 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS AT GORiMIRE AND THIRKLEBV. 



been largely worked here. The top bed is a very ferruginous massive 

 sandstone. The geologists now divided, one section proceeding to 

 Gormire I>ake, the other making a detour to the right in the direction 

 of Hood Grange. A little distance from the ancient fish-pond is a 

 small quarry, showing a good section of the Inferior Oolite. Had 

 time permitted a good selection of typical fossils might have been 

 secured. Mr. Chadwick, however, obtained a fine Tei'ebratiila 

 inaxillata, and Dr. Watts a small echinoderm, known as Holectypus 

 depresses. The limestone here has a bluish colour when freshly 

 broken, but this, on exposure to the atmosphere, changes to a 

 yellowish or orange tint. This quarry is capped by a covering of 

 drift, from which smoothed and striated pebbles of basalt and other 

 rocks were extracted. The remarkable and lofty outlier of Hood 

 Hall was now skirted. This hill is a veritable treasure-ground for 

 geologists, as sections may be studied beginning with the Lower 

 Calcareous Grit, which caps its summit, down through the Oxford 

 Clay and Kellaways Rock, the Estuarine Series and the Dogger, to 

 some laminated shales of the Upper Lias. In addition to its geological 

 importance, it is a strikingly prominent feature in the landscape, 

 standing out, as it were, like a sentinel before the mighty cliffs of 

 Hambleton. The bold escarpment of Roulstone Scar was now 

 ascended ; here the party again divided, and whilst some, in spite of 

 the tropical heat, attained the top, others examined the base of the 

 vertical cliff, and the talus. Roulstone Scar juts out sharply at the 

 corner where the escarpment trends away to the south-east. The 

 Hambleton Hills are, of course, well known as the western end of 

 the great tabular range of hills which extends from the coast at 

 Scarborough to this part. The ascent showed the same stratification 

 as that of Hood Hill. Passing over the Estuarine shales and sand- 

 stones, the hard Kellaways Rock was noted ; then succeeded the 

 slopes of the Oxford Clay, crowned by lofty precipices of the Lower 

 Calcareous Grit. The overpowering heat occasioned many halts, 

 which were utilised by viewing the magnificent landscape which was 

 spread before the delighted eye. To the west lay the broad central 

 vale of York, bounded in the far distance by the familiar forms of 

 Pen Hill in '\\^ensleydale, and of Great Whernside in Coverdale. 

 Over this wide expanse towns and villages could be seen dotted here 

 and there, and the far off railway could be descried by the smoke of 

 the rushing trains. Height succeeded height and hill followed hill 

 as far as the horizon stretched until lost in the solar glare. The view 

 southwards embraced the valley from Thirsk to Malton, closed in by 

 the Howardian range of hills. This valley is remarkable, as it is due 

 to two great east and west trough faults which have depressed the 



• • _ Naturalist, 



