3 
occur many singular pits and depressions in the earth, which 
have given rise to various speculations as to their origin, and 
which, I think, are well worthy of the attention of geologists. 
In form, they are generally crater-like hollows, from fifty to 
a hundred feet across ; and sometimes, though very rarely, 
large and deep perpendicular shafts. There are about thirty 
or forty of these regularly- formed depressions. But a large 
portion of the district has been thrown into a succession of 
little hills and valleys, in consequence of other irregular 
subsidences. In some cases these depressions contain water, 
though the greater number are dry. They seem all originally 
to have been formed as shafts ; their present crater-like form 
being clearl}^ due to the subsequent falling in of the sides. 
They generally, if not universally, occur within half-a-mile 
of the river Ure, which at this point flows roimd an escarp- 
ment of the new red sandstone. And another pit of the 
same character, about three miles from Ripon, in the village 
of Bishop Monckton, is also within a short distance of the 
river. One would naturally suspect, then, that the river had 
had something to do with their formation. This suspicion 
becomes strengthened when we come to examine the depth of 
the pits. In a shaft on tlie eastern side of the railway there 
is water at the bottom at the depth of 64 ft. 6 in., the width 
of the shaft being 41 ft. During dry seasons the water 
disappears, and at the bottom are seen the fallen rocks of the 
new red sandstone, through which the shaft is formed. As 
there must have been once a considerable hollow, now fiUed 
up with the sandstone rock, the true, — i. e., original, — bottom 
of the pit must have been verj^ much lower down — certainly 
more than seventy or eighty feet below the sui'face. Now 
the level of the river is about eighty feet below the top of 
the pit. So that here, in a pit which is one of the most dis- 
tant from the river, we seem to be able to trace a connection 
between the two. 
