20 
DESCRIPTION OF THE ROCKS 
interpolated between the limestones vanish, and these are either united 
with the lower rocks, much altered in aspect, or reduced to nothing. 
This generalization, the fruit of infinite labour, will enable us to 
classify the descriptions, so as to render them more clear and mutually 
illustrative than otherwise could be accomplished ; a circumstance of 
great value in so variable a system of rocks. 
Holland . — Commencing our survey at the south-western extremity, 
we find the limestone occupying a considerable extent of country in the 
vale of the Hodder, in the district of Bolland ; the general direction of 
the limestone strata is N. E. and S. W. ; they fill oval spaces in a wide 
hollow, in the midst of a mountain country whose higher parts are 
capped by the millstone grit series, and the intermediate slopes and 
hills are formed of the Craven shales and grits. It is, not, however? 
merely because of this hollow that the limestone rocks come to day 
in the vale of Hodder ; they are, in fact, uplifted ; and an anticlinal 
axis, directed N. E. and S. W., may be clearly traced through their 
whole extent. The Hodder, after taking a S. W. course in the limestone 
region, from nearly its source to Wardley, quits it and turns at right 
angles to its former course, through the overlying shales, to join the 
Ribble, but the vale of the Hodder (considered as a natural district 
is prolonged to the S. W. The limestone continues in this hollow for a 
few miles farther, and may be considered as forming two oval districts 
in the same great valley of elevation : Chipping is nearly in the centre 
of one, and Slaidburn in the other. The Chipping district ends sud- 
denly by a steep dip to the N., a little beyond Whitewell Inn. As 
before observed, it is covered by shale, in which are beds of black 
limestone yielding fossils (at Black Hall) ; its thickness is considerable 
(several hundred feet), but the bottom is no where seen. In the river 
banks at Whitewell Inn, some limestone beds, low in the series, al- 
ternate with calcareous shales, and both contain crinoidal remains. At 
Harbour, the upper part of the limestone is seen under shales, which 
as well as the limestone yield crinoidal reliquias. In the solid masses 
of limestone, caverns abound ; petrifying waters are frequent ; organic 
