S. A. ADAMSON : THE HITCHINGSTONE. 335 



Rough Rock. Then followed a bed of sandstone, upon which the 

 Hitchingstone immediately rests, of such a character and position as 

 to indicate the basement bed of the Rough Rock. This is of a much 

 finer grain, and the large quartz pebbles which abound on the 

 weathered face of the Hitchingstone are absent, the latter being in 

 many places quite a conglomerate. A few words should also be said 

 upon the geology of the district. The grit of Earl Crag, before men- 

 tioned, is the principal rock of the Middle or Third Grits. This is 

 well defined and distinctly marked, and can be identified wherever it 

 occurs. It extends from Earl Crag down the Glusburn Valley to 

 Hawkcliffe, which overhangs the valley of the Aire between Steeton 

 and Keighley, and appears again on the northern side of the Aire 

 in Brunthwaite Crags, Addingham High Moor, and Otley Chevin. 

 Brimham Rocks are also composed of this rock. In this part of 

 Yorkshire there are generally three beds of grit (when not interfered 

 with by faults) between this bed of grit and the Rough Rock. In 

 walking from Earl Crag to the Hitchingstone, we pass from this main 

 bed of the Third Grits to a bed of shale ; then across another bed of 

 grit, and another bed of shale ; then over two faults, which meet 

 almost at right angles between Round Hill and Winter Hill. Having 

 crossed the faults, we step over another bed of grit, then another of 

 shale, which underlies the bed of grit composing Hitchingstone Hill, 

 on which is the block the subject of this article. In this walk we 

 follow the direction of the dip, and consequently have passed by 

 degrees from lower to higher strata. On account of the faults, there 

 is a little difficulty in tracing all the beds, but it is almost a certainty 

 that at Hitchingstone Hill we are upon the basement bed of the 

 Rough Rock. Scattered over all the surface of the moor are to be 

 seen scores of smaller, but still large blocks of the coarse conglome- 

 rate of the Hitchingstone, and higher up the moors, southwards, for 

 miles, it occurs in situ. The glacialists have made many conjectures as 

 to the original home of this block. Rivock, on the north of the Aire, 

 the Earl Crag, and several other places on the adjacent moors have 

 been pointed out as likely positions to have furnished such a stone. 

 There are two methods by which large blocks like this may have 

 been removed during the glacial period. They may have been forced 

 along the ground by land ice, or have been carried on an iceberg and 

 dropped to the sea bottom as the ice melted. There is no evidence 

 that this part of the country was, during the glacial period, so thickly 

 covered by ice as to admit of a glacier so powerful as would be 

 required to push onwards such a ponderous mass as this • and if it 

 had been dropped from an iceberg, it is probable that the surface of 

 the rock underneath would have presented a different appearance 



Nov. 1886. 



