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YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS AT BOWLAND. 



In their peregrinations the members of the Yorkshire Natural- 

 ists' Union during the past half-century have visited many parts 

 of the county, but rarely have they got so far from the madding 

 crowd as during Whit week-end, when the district around 

 Bowland, or Bolland, was investigated. Newton-in-Bowland 

 was decided upon as the headquarters, and its great distance 

 from the railway, whilst adding a charm to the outing from a 

 naturalist's point of view, had its disadvantage as regards 

 comfort and approach. 



Xewton, a compact old-world village, with substantially 

 built farmhouses, mostly erected in the latter part of the 

 seventeenth century, is most pleasantly situated. In the heart 

 of the village is a small quarry, which delighted the geologists 

 by the great number of well-preserved Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone fossi]s that it contained, notably a large quantity of 

 crinoid ' heads ' — specimens not usually obtainable. Under 

 the guidance of the President of the section, Dr. Dwerryhouse, 

 this party had a profitable time, and on the side of one of the 

 numerous streams were successful in finding several charac- 

 teristic zonal fossils. 



The geologists were on classic ground. In Knoll Park are 

 enormous rounded hills resembling huge pre-historic tumuli 

 in being so symmetrical. Instead, however, of their containing 

 the remains of British chiefs, they are entirely composed of the 

 dead shells of various molluscs, and in amongst them are corals, 

 zoophytes and trilobites. In fact, the hills are to all intents and 

 purposes, reefs formed in a Carboniferous sea, the great mounds 

 being formed by the accumulation of the shells, etc., of the one- 

 time inhabitants of the water. These reefs were eventually 

 solidified, surrounded by shales containing a different fauna, 

 and the whole buried by thousands upon thousands of feet of 

 strata. The geological history of the district from then to the 

 present time is an exceedingly interesting one, but we can only 

 briefly refer to the last chapter. In comparatively recent times 

 the whole of the superincumbent strata have been denuded — 

 even the shales surrounding the knolls have been largely swept 

 away. But the result is wonderful. There, in the valley, are 

 the heaps of shell remains — now high and dry ; otherwise but 

 little changed from that long distant time when they were 

 formed on the ocean floor. 



1909 Aug. I. 



