NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF CLEVELAND. 
83: 
the agent of the metamorpliosis. If, however, we consider the por- 
tion of the strata at various points, the different angles and directions 
of declination at which we find them, we arrive at ance at the con- 
clusion that aqueous action can only be referred to as the means of 
having modified the superficial in'egTilarities which had previously 
been occasioned by a more powerful — a subterranean agency, 
That the Oohtic and Lias formations have obtained very much further 
in a north- westerley dii'ection — how much fui*ther I see no data for 
asceriaining — their steep escarpments and abrupt termination towards 
that quarter most clearly evidence ; and that the present inclinations 
of the strata, dipping as they may be found to every point of the 
compass, have been acquired subsequently to their formation, is only 
in accordance with the great principle of horizontal deposition. The 
general dip, however, of the strata is towards the south-east. 
The tremendous convulsion which raised the great Penine Alps of 
England — that subterranean convulsion which uplifted the mountain 
limestone to a height of a thousand yards thi'ough a length of nearly 
se /enty miles, which, in all probability, broke the continuity of the 
Yorkshire and oSTewcastle coal-fields, and which is justly termed one 
of the most magnificent examples of dislocation in Europe. — This 
stupendous disruption, I say — to which we may refer so many pheno- 
mena — may be regarded as the probable cause of much which may not 
otherwise be easily accounted for in the physical aspect of Cleveland. 
How vast and potent must have been the oceanic cun^ents, which 
caused the denudation of so great an extent of strata ! But, upon 
the fractui'ed edges of the dislocated strata, the violent action of the 
waves and cmTcnts would exercise a wondi'ous wasting and excavating 
power. Here, then, we have causes suflBcient for the changes we 
observe ; but, whether the actual efficiencies in operation, is a question 
for others to decide. 
The rivers, as Professor Phillips observes, run from the north part 
4n valleys which the sea made for them : the gTadual wasting, through 
atmospheric agencies of the shales below has caused the superin- 
cumbent soHd rocks to fall away, and crumble in their turn. 
If we follow the course of the Norih Yorkshii^e Railway we shall 
see at a sflance some of the instances of dislocation to which I have 
referred above. A Httle more than a mile eastward from the \411age 
of Kildale we notice the sandstone rock of the Inferior OoHte fwhich 
I shall hereafter call the " Bottom Sandstone rock"), a few yards only 
above the level of the valley on our right hand, going eastward; 
whilst, on the left towards Wej^orth, it caps the summit of the 
valley at a very considerable height, and is easily traced descending 
very rapidly, as far as Commondale Station. At Castleton, which 
stands upon this same Sandstone rock, a very considerable dislocation 
is easily observed, which extends to a great distance eastward, and 
becomes more and more apparent where the vale of Danby is naiTDwer, 
as at Danby Crag and Howlsike. The Esk here runs in a synclinal 
axis of the strata, as is most clearly discernible in Cininkley Ghyl, 
to which I shall have occasion to refer hereafter. 
