Fossil shells are found in these slate-rocks. I have here several specimens of such shells in the actual rock, and occupying various positions in regard to the cleavage planes. They are squeezed, distorted, and crushed; in all cases the distortion leads to the inference that the rock which contains these shells has been subjected to enormous pressure in a direction at right angles to the planes of cleavage. The shells are all flattened and spread out in these planes. Compare this fossil trilobite of normal proportions with these others which have suffered distortion. Some have lain across, some along, and some oblique to the cleavage of the slate in which they are found; but in all cases the distortion is such as required for its production a compressing force acting at right angles to the planes of cleavage. As the trilobites lay in the mud, the jaws of a gigantic vice appear to have closed upon them and squeezed them into the shapes you see.
We sometimes find a thin layer of coarse gritty material, between two layers of finer rock, through which and across the gritty layer pass the planes of lamination. The coarse layer is found bent by the pressure into sinuosities like a contorted ribbon. Mr. Sorby has described a striking case of this kind. This crumpling can be experimentally imitated; the amount of compression might, moreover, be roughly estimated by supposing the contorted bed to be stretched out, its length measured and compared with the shorter distance into which it has been squeezed. We find in this way that the yielding of the mass has been considerable.
Let me now direct your attention to another proof of pressure; you see the varying colours which indicate the bedding on this mass of slate. The dark portion is gritty, being composed of comparatively coarse particles, which, owing to their size, shape and gravity, sink first and constitute the bottom of each layer. Gradually, from bottom to top the coarseness diminishes, and near the upper surface we have a layer of exceedingly fine grain. It is the fine mud thus consolidated from which are derived the German razor-stones, so much prized for the sharpening of surgical instruments.
When a bed is thin, the fine-grain slate is permitted to rest upon a slab of the coarse slate in contact with it; when the fine bed is thick, it is cut into slices which are cemented to pieces of ordinary slate, and thus rendered stronger. The mud thus deposited is, as might be expected, often rolled up into nodular masses, carried forward, and deposited among coarser material by the rivers from which the slate-mud has subsided. Here are such nodules enclosed in sandstone. Everybody, moreover, who has ciphered upon a school-slate must remember the whitish-green spots which sometimes dotted the surface of the slate, and over which the pencil usually slid as if the spots were greasy. Now these spots are composed of the finer mud, and they could not, on account of their fineness, bite the pencil like the surrounding gritty portions of the slate. Here is a beautiful example of these spots: you observe them, on the cleavage surface, in broad round patches. But turn the slate edgeways and the section of each nodule is seen to be a sharp oval with its longer axis parallel to the cleavage. This instructive fact has been adduced by Mr. Sorby. I have made excursions to the quarries of Wales and Cumberland, and to many of the slate yards of London, and found the fact general. Thus we elevate a common experience of our boyhood into evidence of the highest significance as regards a most important geological problem. From the magnetic deportment of these slates, I was led to infer that these spots contain a less amount of iron than the surrounding dark slate. An analysis was made for me by Mr. Hambly in the laboratory of Dr. Percy at the School of Mines with the following result :—
ANALYSIS OF SLATE. | |
Dark Slate,two analyses. | |
1. Percentage ofiron | 5.85 |
2. Percentage ofiron | 6.13 |
Mean | 5.99 |
Whitish GreenSlate. | |
1. Percentage ofiron | 3.24 |
2. Percentage ofiron | 3.12 |
Mean | 3.18 |
According to these analyses the quantity of iron in the dark slate immediately adjacent to the greenish spot is nearly double the quantity contained in the spot itself. This is about the proportion which the magnetic experiments suggested.
Let me now remind you that the facts brought before you are typical — each is the representative of a class. We have seen shells crushed; the trilobites squeezed, beds contorted, nodules of greenish marl flattened; and all these sources of independent testimony point to one and the same conclusion, namely, that slate-rocks have been subjected to enormous pressure in a direction at right angles to the Planes of cleavage.
In reference to Mr. Sorby's contorted bed, I have said that by supposing it to be stretched out and its length measured, it would give us an idea of the amount of yielding of the mass above and below the bed. Such a measurement, however, would not give the exact amount of yielding. I hold in my hand a specimen of slate with its bedding marked upon it; the lower portions of each layer being composed of a comparatively coarse gritty material something like what you may suppose the contorted bed to be composed of. Now in crossing these gritty portions, the cleavage turns, as if tending to cross the bedding at another angle. When the pressure began to act, the intermediate bed, which is not entirely unyielding, suffered longitudinal pressure; as it bent, the pressure became gradually more transverse, and the direction of its cleavage is exactly such as you would infer from an action of this kind — it is neither quite across the bed, nor yet in the same direction as the cleavage of the slate above and below it, but intermediate between both. Supposing the cleavage to be at right angles to the pressure, this is the direction which it ought to take across these more unyielding strata.
Thus we have established the concurrence of the phenomena of cleavage and pressure — that they accompany each other; but the question still remains, Is the pressure sufficient to account for the cleavage? A single geologist, as far as I am aware, answers boldly in the affirmative. This geologist is Sorby, who has attacked the question in the true spirit of a physical investigator. Call to mind the cleavage of the flags of Halifax and Over Darwen, which is caused by the interposition of layers of mica between the gritty strata. Mr. Sorby finds plates of mica to be also a constituent of slate-rock. He asks himself, what will be the effect of pressure upon a mass containing such plates confusedly mixed up in it? It will be, he argues, and he argues rightly, to place the plates with their flat surfaces more or less perpendicular to the direction in which the pressure is exerted. He takes scales of the oxide of iron, mixes them with a fine powder, and on squeezing the mass finds that the tendency of the scales is to set themselves at right angles to the line of pressure. Along the planes of weakness produced by the scales the mass cleaves.
By tests of a different character from those applied by Mr. Sorby, it might be shown how true his conclusion is — that the effect of pressure on elongated particles, or plates, will be such as he describes it. But while the scales must be regarded as a true cause, I should not ascribe to them a large share in the production of the cleavage. I believe that even if the plates of mica were wholly absent, the cleavage of slate-rocks would be much the same as it is at present.