448 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



Missino- Malliam Cave, we followed the line of tlie " Craven -fault" to Settle, 

 where its'grandest features are displayed in the deep valley of Austwick, and 

 on the upheaved masses of Teizer, and the magnificent scars of Giggleswick, 

 above Austwick. High up, nearly on the upper platform of the limestone- 

 cliffs, our friend Mr. Burrow, whose collection of Craven-fossils is almost 

 unique, pointed out to us a cove in the scars, the bottom of which was covered 

 by great blocks of Silurian slates, many of them standing upon tlie edges of the 

 weathered limestone like logging-stones and cromlechs, the stone upon wliich 

 they were placed having worn away much faster than they had , themselves. 

 The locality and the position of these stones seemed at first to mark the site of 

 an ancient glacier. There was, however, no evidence of glacial markings ; and 

 the slate-rocks were too high above their place in situ to allow of such a 

 supposition. They appear more likely to have been the jetsam of stranded 

 icebergs that had floated off from a glacier debouching upon a half-frozen 

 lake ; but the place is worth a visit, and it cannot be missed by anyone who 

 inquires at Austwick for " the moor where the black stones are." 



'Further eastward, under Moughton Sears, magnificent sections of the Silurian 

 slate-rocks underlying the limestone are exposed, especially in the quarries at 

 Horton, in Ribblesdale. The rocks most disturbed in tlie line of the fault 

 yield localities very rich in fossils. 



I will not dwell on our journey from Skipton to Bolton Abbey, nor from 

 thence by Greenhow Hill to Paleley Bridge, except to remark that Greenhow 

 Hill deserves a better description than I can give of it. At Nursa Knot, part 

 of Greenhow Hill there is an anticlinal axis, where the " lower scar-limestone" is 

 thrust up through the Millstone-gi'it. Want of time, idleness, and illness pre- 

 vented a close examination of it, which it would well repay, and more especially 

 if an exploration of the lead-mines at Craven Cross could be arranged at the 

 same time. 



Nidderdale is one of the pleasantest little valleys in England ; its meadows 

 are luxurious as a summer Alp ; its streams flow full and sparkling, in beds of 

 limestone through deep fringes of richly foliaged timber-trees. Thick planta- 

 tions line its sides, and either run up to and over the summits of the hills, or 

 only just permit the brown crags of the Millstone-grit to peep over the tops of 

 the firs. Towards the head of the dale these woods disappear from the hills, 

 and only hold their place in the deep ravines ploughed out by the mountain- 

 torrents. In one of these the infant Nid disappears into a yawning cavern, 

 called " Goreden Pot-hole." 



^ In following the valley downwards, the ravine seems to be blocked up by a 

 gigantic precipice of limestone, under which is a deep tunnel, and into tliis the 

 stream rushes and disappears amongst the huge rocks that are heaped one on 

 another in this gigantic portal. The blue mist comes eddying out into the hot 

 air,^ and if you enter within, the cave is as chill as an ice-house. The white pre- 

 cipice is fringed with ash and alder, and the thick woods that fill the ravine make 

 it dark even at a summer's noon. The bizarre shapes of the rocks, the yawning 

 entrance, and the swaUowed-up river would, among a people more romantic 

 than Yorkshiremen, have given rise to many a legend of fantastic superstition. 

 There it is so little thought of, that a few miles off the natives scarce know of 

 its existence. In rainy weather especially it is worth a day*s journey to visit it. 



Two miles below this " swaUow-hole" the river issues out of the liiU-side 

 from beneath two natural rock-arches in a fuE. clear stream, caUed " Nid-head ;" 

 but if not particularly inquired for in the district, the place will not be pointed 

 out by the villagers. Both these localities are ivithin easy distance of Harro- 

 gate, which lies in the throat of the vaUey, and through which nins the only 

 good road into Nidderdale, all the other roads out of it on each side being ex- 

 cessively steep and awkward. Tor a pedestrian, however, nothing can be finer. 



