225 
YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS AT CLITHEROE. 
W. H. PEARSALL, D.SC. AND F. A. MASON, F.R.M.S. 
The 298th Meeting of the Union was held during Easter week-end, 
April 15th to 17th. The geological investigation of the Middle Car- 
boniferous and its fauna, for which the excursions were primarily planned, 
and which v^as successfully accomplished, involved the examination of 
sections in an extended field overlapping the Yorkshire boundary to 
just within Lancashire. Clitheroe was selected for Headquarters, as it 
is conveniently situated for giving access to Pendle Hill on the East, 
and on the west to the valleys of the Ribble, and its tributary, the 
Hodder. Clitheroe is a small county town replete with mediaeval 
tradition and associated with witches and witchcraft. The most important 
historical feature of Clitheroe is its castle, although little except the 
keep now remains to mark the site of one of the seats of the once powerful 
De Lacy’s ; the castle was dismantled by order of Parliament in the 
time of the Civil War. From the keep, perched on the top of a limestone 
knoll, a view is obtained that commands a wide expanse of Ribblesdale, 
and the Forest of Bowland, Pendle Hill, and the mountainous hills of 
North-west Yorkshire. 
It was an unfortunate coincidence that another geological programme 
was being carried out, on the opposite side of the county, during the same 
week-end, and it undoubtedly militated against a large attendance at 
Clitheroe. On the day preceding the official date of the meeting, work 
was commenced by the Geological Section under the guidance of Messrs. 
John Holmes and Wm. S. Bisat on sections exposed in the valley of the 
Lower Hodder. From this time until the close of the meeting the 
geologists pursued a definite line of research, the results of which are 
embodied in a report received from Mr. Bisat. 
Mr. Bisat says, ‘ The lowest beds examined during the week-end 
were those exposed in the Hodder under Hodder Place. Here a succession 
of alternating limestones and shales, estimated to be over 1000 feet in 
thickness, was seen dipping strongly upstream. These beds contain 
(sparingly) goniatites, trilobites and corals. 
The party had the great advantage of being personally conducted 
over the site by Rev. G. Waddington (S.J.), of Stonyhurst College, who 
has studied and collected from these sections for many years, and drawn 
detailed charts of the exposures. Two goniatite zones were pointed 
out by him, and material was collected for future study. He considers 
these beds to form practically a complete exposure of the local Visean, 
with possibly even lower beds present. The total absence of the 
characteristic Visean brachiopod fauna is interesting. 
A section, complementary to the above, was seen in the river Ribble 
at Dinckley Hall, again under the guidance of Mr. Waddington. These 
beds continue the section upwards, from the highest beds seen in the 
Hodder, into the ‘ Pendleside ’ zones. 
Low down in the Dinckley section were seen bullions with beautifully 
preserved crenistria, and the succeeding beds of shale, with further bands 
of limestone bullions, yielded the typical “ Pendleside ” succession, 
including Posidonomya becheri, P. membranacea, Goniatites spirale, 
Glyphioceras ‘ biling^le.’ In these beds careful search was made for 
Glyphioceras reticulatum and Ptevinopecten papyraceus, but no trace was . 
found either at Dinckley, Pendle Hill or Thornley Beck (near .Chipping). 
It is also to be observed that the so-called bilingue of these beds is 
not the bilingue of Salter, but another species of altogether earlier date, 
which closely resembles Salter’s species in the spiral groove (in the cast) 
and lateral lappets, but. differs considerably in the ornamentation; of, 
the test. This earlier species, up to about 5 mm. diameter, has distinct 
1922 July 1 
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