adamson: sections exposed in skipton and ilkley railway. 365 
the latter probably re-arranged glacial beds. This cutting occasioned 
considerable outlay from the cost of draining and strengthening the 
slopes with dry rubble counterposts. The railway was now left for 
a short time, the cutting being ascended, and a detour made by a 
long subterranean passage into the famous Haw Bank Quarry (com- 
monly called Skipton Rock). This quarry is worked by the Leeds 
and Liverpool Canal Company, and the limestone which is used for 
iron smelting, road metal, &c , is taken along a tramway (worked by 
steel wire ropes from the engine house at Embsay) down to a branch 
of the canal behind Skipton Castle, and there tipped into boats. The 
section is of interest to the geologist, not only from its stupendous 
size, but also that it reveals so clearly the stratification on the north 
side of the great Skipton anticlinal. The height of the quarry is 
255 feet, and the strata, which are composed of dark grey and 
blackish limestone, with thin beds of black shile intervening, dip at 
the western end of the quarry from 40 to 55 degrees W.N.W. 
Proceeding eastwards, the dip increases until it reaches 80 degrees, 
that is nearly vertical. At the south side of the anticlinal ridge of 
Haw Bank, was seen the Skibeden Quarry. Here beds of dark grey, 
blackish compact limestone were observed precisely similar to those 
of Haw Bank. It will be remembered that at Haw Bank, just at the 
other side of the ridge, the beds had a rapid dip to W.N.W. At 
Skibeden the exposed limestone dipped sharply to the S.E., or just 
in the contrary direction. In South Craven, the anticlinals bring up 
the limestones between the shales and grits of the Yoredale and 
millstone grit series. The synclinals on each side of the valley 
forming the hills, are composed of the latter rocks. The fact of the 
anticlinals usually forming valleys, whilst synclinals form high 
ground between them, seems at first sight somewhat paradoxical ; 
but as Mr. Topley and others have pointed out the synclinals being 
compressed and compact, are apt to resist denudation ; whilst 
anticlinals from their being broken up, or fissured at the summit, 
would be readily acted upon by atmospheric agencies. Thus says 
Professor Geikie, " That which in geological structure is a depression, 
has by denudation become a great mountain, while what was an 
elevation has been turned into a valley." It is probable that 
