NOTKS AND QUERIES. 
445 
NOTES AND QUERIES, 
Notes of a Geological Tour in Wiiarfedale. — I know no district 
ill Eiif^laud that contains such scenes of varied beauty or grandeur as the 
valleys and liills that form the nortli-wcstern corner of Yorkshire. I have 
spent years among them, and they are still fresh to me, and present ever- 
changing points of interest. Savage, as where the wild heath-covered liills 
of the Millstone-grit lie around with an almost illimitable horizon, the 
clouds in passing east their shadows over them as they do over the sea ; or 
wiiere the grass-grown ledges of the lower " scar-limestone" stretch away 
along the monutam-side, like giant stairs up to the purple hills that swell iu 
^reat bosses from their roeky platform ; or where the mountain-torrent bursts 
its way between black beetling walls of precipices riven by the catastrophes of 
an older world. Picturesque, as wliere tlie streams have cut their way deeply 
into the " Yoredale-rocks," whose " scars," bleached and worn, peep through 
the thick woods that creep up the steep sides of the ravines, or stand out bare 
and gray above them, like the torn ruuis of a mighty fortress. Beautiful, as 
where the trickling riUs steal into some still pool, where the damp rocks are 
green with mosses, or the richly eoloui-ed lichens and jiuigermannia form a bed, 
overhung by the graceful fern-fronds ; where thick masses of young ash and 
maple (ill up the hollow banks, through which rise the tall purple foxglove and 
the pale flowers of the giant campion like fairy sceptres, while over all the tall 
elms shut out the light, or admit it only in broken gleams to play among the 
leaves, or sparkle upon the breaking water, murnuiriug as it ripples over the 
edges of the dark pool to find its way again to the suiisliine. The lover of the 
beautifid will everywhere find himself well repaid for his exertions ; but the 
naturalist, and especially the geologist, wiU nowhere find objects of higher ui- 
terest, more finely developed instances of geological phenomena, or a more 
plentiful harvest of fossils to reward a hard day's work. 
Of tiiese mountains and glens few equal, none excel, either in their stern or 
gentle beauty, or the interest of their geological relations, the valleys of the 
Wharfc and Nid, or the mountain-masses of Great Whernside and Buekdcn 
Pike ; and in this short paper I will endeavour to point out some of the many 
spots mteresting to the geologist, through which we passed iu the course of a 
summer excursion, indicating a few of the localities for fossils, and the less 
known beanties of the district — far too seldom visited, though so near to 
places like llkley or Harrogate, where the habitues are eaten up by ennui, and 
languish for somctliing fresh to see or to do. 
Before I proceed further, I would wish, however, to sketch very briefly the 
nature of the strata which are exposed m these dales. The formation is the 
Carboniferous-limestone, divided by PhilUps into five main sections. In 
Wensleydale to the north the whole of these divisions is well developed, 
viz., in descending order : 
1st (or uppermost), The Millstone-grit group, a series of sandstones and 
argillaceous beds called "plate," with many seams of stony or impure coal, 
and a few tliin bands of limestone in its lower portion. These rocks cap tiie 
highest hdls of the district ; but towards the cast they spread out into wide 
moors till they disappear under the magnesian-limestone of central York- 
shire towards the north under the Durham coal-field. Their thickness varies 
2ud («) The upper " Scar-limestone," consisting of two thick beds of blue 
from 
100 to 400 feet. 
VOL. II. 
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