62 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE PENDLE 
RANGE. 
(Illustrated by the Lantern.) 
By Mr. JOHN T. SMITH, of Blackburn. 
October 29/A, 1907. 
Mr. Smith’s visit to the Club was rendered interesting from 
the fact that he was many years ago schoolmaster at Mere- 
clough, and was also formerly connected with the Burnley 
Mechanics’ Institution as a teacher. 
In unfolding the story of the evolution of the Pendle range, 
he displayed wide knowledge of geological subjects and an 
intimate acquaintance with the geological phenomena of the 
district under review, — a district, of course, particularly 
interesting to a Burnley audience. In telling his story, the 
lecturer was greatly aided by a number of very interesting 
slides, which showed the stratification of the earlier crust 
and the process of denudation which had been the architect 
of the Pendle range scenery. Although the Pendle Range 
extended from Skipton to Whalley and to near Wigan and 
Southport, he confined himself more particularly to the 
Burnley locality, where it consisted of two parallel ranges 
and three valleys. They would consider chiefly the range 
of hills on whose slopes stand Barrowford and Higham, cut 
across at the Whalley Gorge. 
In early geological times a sea extended from what is now 
central England, to central Scotland, and its shores eastward 
extended to what is now Scandinavia. In the waters of this 
sea, — a sea known to geologists as the Carboniferous Sea, 
corals and coral animalculae lived and flourished, their shells 
and coverings in due time fell to the ocean floor, and ultimately 
formed large thicknesses of limestone. To the north in 
Scotland, and to the east were extensive tracts of high land. 
