354 IN MEMORIAM : JOHN STANLEY TUTE, B.A. 
lectures in the village school-room on various scientific subjects, 
the most popular being " The use of little birds to the farmer." 
He also kept a weather chart for many years, and was a very true 
weather prophet ; in fact, the parishioners consulted him anxiously 
before they cut their hay. He was also instrumental in obtaining 
a supply of good drinking water, conveyed in pipes, which has 
for some years been of great benefit to the village. 
Though acquainted with more than one science, Geology was 
his faA^ourite study. 
For many years he was a member of the Yorkshire Geological 
and Polytechnic Society, and also of the Ripon Scientific Society. 
To the former he made several communications which prove him 
to have been one of the best local geologists in that part of the 
West Riding. 
The discovery of a fossiliferous horizon in the hitherto barren 
Millstone Grit series was due to his innate aptitude for fossil- 
hunting, in combination with his topographical knowledge of th 
picturesque neighbourhood of Markington, where the Cayton Gill 
beds were first made known. This horizon has since been proved 
to underlie the Plompton Grit in all parts of the district, and has 
been of considerable use in mapping the country. In most places 
the rock is a hard calcareous sandstone, full of the remains of 
Encrinites, Producti and other Brachiopods, which has been 
largely quarried for road metal at many points to the west of 
Harrogate and Ripon. Subsequently Mr. Tute recorded the 
discovery of Spirangium carhonarium from a boulder in the Drift, 
which he regarded as having been derived from the Yoredale 
series. About the same time he noted the occurrence of Lingula 
in the Millstone Grit series to the west of Ripon, the first recorded 
from beds of that age in the district. 
The Magnesian Limestone of this part of Yorkshire has, also, 
the reputation of being very barren hunting-ground. Yet Mr. Tute 
was able to compile a very good list of Permian fossil s'''^" from the 
Lower Limestone of Aldfield and Well. In 1883 he gave an 
* Quoted by Mr. Fox-Strangways in the Survey Memoir of the Country 
north and east of Harrogate, p. 10. 
