grandeur that is very striking. The deep cloughs running up from Edale, and Fairbrook Clough are among the most noticeable; a sketch of the latter is given in Fig. 7, page 36. The cliffs in the distance mark the escarpment of the Kinder Grit, the steep hill-side below being formed of the underlying shales; while the softer and more gently rounded hills in the foreground and the middle distance are Shale Grit, through which the stream has worked a deep valley. The scenery on Kinder Scout is also very wild and impressive, specially about the Downfall, where the stream in wet weather tumbles over a precipice of grit, around which fallen masses of the rock are strewn in wild confusion. The upper surface of the plateau is covered with a considerable thickness of peat; bosses of grit, however, stand up here and there, and have been worn by the weather into the queerest and most unlooked-for shapes (see Frontispiece). It at once strikes the eye that a very large number of these rocks are undercut, or worn away more in the lower than in the upper part: this was for a long time a puzzle to us; if the rocks had been all pretty much on the same level, it might have been that the upper parts of all the weathered blocks belonged to the same hard bed, and the lower parts to one somewhat softer; but they are found scattered up and down at very different heights, so that this explanation would not do. Sir A. Ramsay on his visit threw out the following hint on the matter. The rock, wherever it is exposed to the air, weathers down into coarse sand, which lies thick over those parts of the hill-top which are bare of peat. During high winds this sand is of course blown against anything that comes in its way, and acts like a natural file or emery powder; but as the wind cannot lift the heavy grains far from the ground, it is the lower part of the obstacle that will be most worn away, and hence the rocks are hollowed out below. If any one doubts whether the means assigned are sufficient for this end, we recommend a visit to the spot during a moderate gale, and an attempt to hold the head a few feet from the ground with the face towards the wind. It is clear that in time large masses of rock might be thus carried away altogether, by what may be called æolian denudation. We will now take a hasty run round the edge of the hill, noting anything worthy of remark as we go. At the Ordnance Station, at the north-west corner, the beds dip S.E. at 10°: the dip keeps the same amount along the Edge, but gradually changes its direction till at Fairbrook Naze it is a little west of south. Near the top of Upper Redbrook is a very curious overhanging weathered rock. The base of the grit is well shown in several of the little gorges that look like slashes in the hill side, in Fairbrook, and again in Blackdean Brook and Jagger Clough. At the western end of Blackdean Edge are some fine weathered rocks. Along Blackdean Edge the rocks seem to have a south-easterly dip, but in Jagger Clough the dip is due west at 5°. Along the southern flank of the hill the dip is a little west of north, from 10° to 15°. The deep gloomy gorges, such as Grindsbrook and Crowden Cloughs, that cut far back into the escarpment, are very grand and lonely with their rugged cliffs of gritstone frowning down from above. At Edale Head we have the largest group of the weathered rocks already mentioned: they are of every conceivable shape, and cover several acres of ground. A group is figured in the frontispiece. The base of the grit is clearly shown round Kinderlow End, but hence northwards it is hidden for some way by large landslips; we find it again in the brook below Cluther Rocks and at the Kinder Downfall, after which the side of the hill is again covered by huge landslips, and it is not possible to fix the line exactly till a little before the Ordnance Station at the north-west corner, where we began our circuit. From the directions of the dip as we go round the hill it appears that the rock on the top of the Peak lies in a very flattened basin, the beds on all sides dipping gently into the hill. It is to this most likely that the outlier owes its preservation. Kinderlow Cavern is not easily accessible. The entrance is through a fissure nearly vertical, and it is likely that the cavern itself is a large rent caused by the rock having parted along a joint end slipped slightly forwards. Appalling legends prevail in the neighbourhood of rash explorers who have lost their way and been imprisoned for a whole night in the cave. We will now once more make the circuit of the Peak, but at a lower level than before, and examine the sections given by the different brooks that flow down from the edge of the table-land. In the upper part of a brook north of the words " Ashop Head" there is much disturbance, produced most likely by two lines of fault, of which we get fuller evidence to the north. Below this troubled ground the beds have a regular dip, from 10° to 15°, south, or a little west of south, and the stream soon enters the main mass of the Shale Grit, of which it yields a good section, showing sandstones, with a little coarser grit, interbedded here and there with shale. In Upper Redbrook we have the following section: Massive coarse grit, mixed with finer and more thinly Kinder Scout Shales with a few thin sandstones, about 3C0 feet. Interval hidden by rubbish} Shale Grit. Sandstone and fine Grit. In Nether Redbrook, about 50 feet below the base of the Kinder Scout Grit, there is a bed of grit in the shales (No. 10 p. 8), about 12 feet thick, with grains about the size of wheat. In the two Yates Cloughs some beds of the Shale Grit are very coarse indeed, and in parts a conglomerate. In the brook that runs down from the "C" of the words" Cabin Moss," we have the following section of the Shale Grit : The bed No. 2 in this section is the thickest and one of the most regular of the shale-bands in the Shale Grit, and divides that mass of rock into two parts, which we may call the Upper and Lower Shale Grit respectively. The next large clough we come to is Fairbrook, which, with its feeders, gives In Fairbrook itself we have many good sections. Kinder Scout Grit. Shales, with a sandstone bed near the top, about 300 feet. Shale Grit, parted by a thick shale-band into Upper and Lower. Between Fairbrook and Blackdean Clough the beds seem to undergo some very singular and rapid changes, as shown in the following diagram, which has Blackdean been drawn out from a careful comparison of numerous brook-sections measured by Dr. C. Le Neve Foster. W. Fig. 8. Diagram to show the changes in the Beds between Fairbrook and Blackdean Clough. E. Fairbrook. Clough. Clough. Coarse, massive grit and conglomerate (Kinder Scout Grit). Sandy shales. Thin sandstones and sandy shales. Bed of grit about 6 feet. Shale and a little sandstone. Sandstone, grit and shale beds, about 520 feet (Shale Grit). The shales below the Kinder Grit contain hereabouts, and specially below Blackdean Edge, a great deal of sandstone, and sometimes grit so coarse as to be scarcely told by look from Kinder Grit: the beds are very irregular, and may be seen in the brook-courses thinning away and setting in again. In one case a bed of grit 25 feet thick was seen to die away altogether in as many yards. Owing to the presence of these coarse beds in the shale it is very puzzling to fix the bottom of the Kinder Scout Grit; we have endeavoured to keep the line of division as near as may be on the same geological horizon, without regard to the nature of the rock, and the observer must not be startled should he find here and there beds of even coarse grit in the belt which we have coloured as shales round the Peak. We next have a clear section in Jagger Clough, which shows:- Grey sandy shale with a bed of fine sandstone near the top-150 feet. Yoredale Sandstones. The cloughs running down the south face of the Peak into Edale give magnificent sections. The following table shows the thicknesses given by the four best. The measurements were made with a small pocket aneroid, and are of course only very rough approximations. Yoredale 1. Kinder Scout Grit. 2. Sandy shale, with tilestone and thin beds of ft. in. 290 0 200 0 3. Shale Grit. Massive and flaggy sandstones, 4. Supposed representatives of the Yoredale Sandstones. Thinly bedded hard fine 5. Black shales with nodules and beds of earthy No. 2 are best shown in Grindsbrook Clough. In the brook running down from Edale Head, just to the east of the "k" in the words Edale Rocks, there are only about 60 feet of shales between the Kinder Scout and Shale Grits. We have mentioned how changeable this band of shale is, both in thickness and mineral character, and here we find that between Crowden Clough and the brook just mentioned, a distance of three quarters of a mile, it loses 72 per cent. of its whole thickness. The ground at the foot of Kinder Scout is so covered by landslips that we get few good sections. In the brook formed by the junction of the streams from Cluther Rocks and Kinder Downfall the Shale Grit contains a very large quantity of shale: in fact the shale here equals if it does not surpass in bulk the whole amount of sandstone. There is a very curious encrusting spring on this flank of the Peak. It will be found beside a brook that runs through the first "o" of the words "Mermaid's Pool," half-way between the brook from Cluther Rocks and a wall marked on the Map. It has deposited a large mass of calcareous tufa of a dull yellowish colour: it is somewhat difficult to see whence the supply of carbonate of lime comes. There are, besides the Peak, two small outliers of what seems to be Kinder Scout Grit; one on Mill Hill, north-west of the Ordnance Station, which is somewhat questionable, and the other on Brown |