The Geology of Eskdale, Rosedale, (Explanation of Quarter-Sheet 96 N.E.) New Series, Sheet 43) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 Excerpt: ...feature along the valley. This rock is quarried above the Alum Works just at the east of this area, and it also shows very well on the north side of the Esk, under Swarth Howe Cross. To the south it passes through Crag Cliff Wood and up Eller Beck, where there is a complete section of all these beds, though there is no point of special interest about them. The sandstones are, for the most part very felspathic, which does not permit their resisting much pressure, and, when this is the case, renders them unfit for building purposes. In the western area it is very noticeable that the strata, as a rule, are more arenaceous, the sandstones forming by far the larger part of the Estuarine Series. The section under Burton Head, where the Alum Shale is succeeded by 110 feet of sandstone with mere partings of shale, shows this very well; the sandstone giving a very bold outline to the escarpment. On the edge of Ingleby Moor there is a very large quarry in this sandstone, but in Bilsdule these beds are not well developed, as a rule, although there is a very bold crag of the thick sandstone in Tripsdale; and, on the west side of the dale, just above Helm House, where the uppermost part of the bed is more even and finer grained, it was once quarried extensively and furnished the stone from which Rievaulx Abbey was built. The Eller Beck Bed.--Kather more than 100 feet above the Alum Shale is a thin marine bed known as the Eller Beck Bed. This bed may be described as a flaggy, fossiliferous sandstone, or sometimes oolitic ironstone, resting on shales in which occur either nodules or thin continuous beds of very fossiliferous ironstone. Both its upper and lower boundary is indefinite, there being a gradual passage into the ordinary estuarine beds. Commencing with the north...