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YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS AT HAMPOLE. 



The Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, which spreads its attentions 

 in turn over every part of the county, devoted Thursday, 

 July 9th, to a visit to Hampolc, near Doncaster. The village 

 was once the site of a little Cistercian nunnery ; one, however, 

 which has nev'er gained quite the same fame as Kirklees and 

 Esholt. But it must have had in reality a beauty of situation 

 hardly less inferior, standing as it did under a steep hillside, 

 richly wooded, and in the midst of a most fertile countr}^ 



The Magnesian hmestone, which forms the hillside, and 

 underlies the surrounding country, is famous among botanists 

 for the richness of its vegetation, and Hampole and its surround- 

 ing villages, though but little known to the seeker after the 

 picturesque, are really of considerable beauty. Unfortunately, 

 either from the inconvenience of a mid-week excursion, or the 

 uncertain and unpromising weather, the attendance was prob- 

 ably the smallest which has attended a meeting of the Union 

 for a considerable period. Those members, however, who 

 attended were rewarded with a day of much delight, for the 

 weather was exquisite, the scenery enjoyable, and the scientific 

 interests considerable and varied. Assembling at Doncaster 

 Station, and proceeding to Hampole by train, the members 

 scattered, and spent the whole day within a few miles of the 

 vHlage, pursuing in woodland or hedgerow or quarry their own 

 branches of study. 



The geologists made a round of the quarries between Ham- 

 pole and Hooton Pagnell, finding the one characteristic fossil 

 of the district, Schizodus obscurus — always in a bad condition. 

 A much more interesting geological feature was a section of the 

 beds of the limestone seen in the railway cutting near Hampole 

 Station. The even course of the beds is interfered with by a 

 small fault, and on one side of this fault the beds present the 

 appearance of a huge capital S laid upon its side, some of the 

 apparent contortions being of a most remarkable character. 

 It was, however, but a trap which nature and the railway 

 engineers had laid for the unwary geologist, for on closer study, 

 the magnificent ' contortions ' became much more simple. The 

 limestone is standing at an angle of about 45 degrees, and 

 had there undergone a slight doming. The railway em- 

 bankment at a somewhat less steep angle than the beds, had 

 bared a portion of the dome of limestone, revealing its various 

 strata in most interesting and puzzling forms. 



Naturalist, 



