358 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



having, in nearly all cases, been attended with most important re- 

 sults, both as respects the quantity, as well as the kind of ore met 

 with. Nevertheless, I am not aware of their having ever received 

 any particular attention from geologists, nor of their having been 

 anywhere described, circumstances which may probably arise from 

 the fact of these beds only being visible below the surface, and 

 usually in deep mines ; or they may have remained unnoticed, from 

 the really small amount of scientific observation which in this country 

 has been brought to bear on the facts connected with metalliferous 

 deposits, compared with what has been done, and is still doing, in 

 other branches of physical geology. The present article is drawn 

 from memoranda made during several careful surveys of mines which 

 are notable, in North Staffordshire, for exhibiting the phenomena of 

 the saddles in great force. 



Lign. 1.— Contorted or plicated strata seen in vertical section. 



The term metalliferous saddle, or rather simply ^' saddle," as used 

 by the Derbyshire miner, is a very expressive one, and pictures, 

 almost without the necessity of further description, the particular 

 kind of structure to which it is applied. It mil, however, assist us 

 subsequently in more ways than one if we here recall a few of the 

 facts connected with contorted strata so called, and which are so fre- 

 quently to be observed in various rocks in nature . First then, in 

 many localities, where good cliff-sections are exposed, the strata of 

 various common rocks, and particularl}^ schists and shales, are seen 

 to have been crumpled, so to speak, or in other words, the beds, instead 

 of continuing on with their usual regularity, become tmsted and 

 folded into the most singularl}^ complex forms, this kind of structm'e 



