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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
In High Teesdale, on certain hillsides, the structure of which is in most respects clear, the observer is struck by the disappearance of some, generally constant, limestone which ought naturally to occur. The limestone most usually missing is the Great Limestone, which, with the exception of the Melmerby Scar Limestone, is the thickest of all in the dale. Though the ground is almost free from peat and drift, and plainly shows the banks formed by the Four Fathom Limestone and Firestone, there is yet perhaps neither bank nor ‘shake-hole’ (swallow-hole) to represent the Great Limestone. In the cases referred to the difficulty cannot be accounted for by supposing that the limestone along its outcrop is thrown out by a fault, for the outcrops of the beds above and below can be followed round the hill without interruption.
The substance of this communication was written 25 years ago. Since then Mr. F. Rutley has written “On the Dwindling and Disappearance of Limestones” (Q.J.G.S., 1893, vol. xlix, p. 372), but he makes no mention of their special liability to dwindle in the neighbourhood of faults and veins, and gives no instances of their disappearance on a large scale. Mr. J. R. Dakyns has written a short paper “On ‘Flots’” (Report Brit. Assoc., 1881, p. 634), and the material in many ‘flots’ seems of much the same nature as ‘famp.’ The writer has recently seen an instance of famping, differing somewhat from the examples in Teesdale, in one of the limestones (the Skateraw Middle Limestone), which has been quarried at Catcraig, near Dunbar, and this has recalled the subject to him.
page 259 note 2 The Four Fathom Limestone is a little below the Great, and the Firestone is a sandstone a little above the Great Limestone.
page 260 note 1 A hush is an artificial wash-out, made for the purpose of baring and cutting the strata and the veins which cross them. In the process of hushing a reservoir is made high on the hill, and the water is let out in a flood along the desired direction.