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pwithnall@ramblingreaders.org

Joined 1 year, 4 months ago

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pwithnall's books

Currently Reading (View all 5)

Review of 'Caves and Karst of the Yorkshire Dales' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Comprehensive discussion of all cave areas in northern England, with example caves to illustrate the development and hydrology of caves in each area. Nice photos, with particularly useful comparisons of sinks and resurgences in dry and flood conditions. Nice maps.

Bit of a big read though.

Review of 'Caves and Karst of the Yorkshire Dales' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A comprehensive overview of various areas of the science around caves and the landscape in the Yorkshire Dales. With the exception of chapter 3 (glaciology) I found it very accessible. Each chapter has comprehensive (separate) referencing.

Review of 'The Pennine Dales' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A fairly interesting overview of the Pennine dales, their culture, geology, history, etc. Quite dated now, but interesting to see how things have changed (the M6 has been built, for example) and how many of Raistrick’s predictions about the future have or have not come true.

Review of 'The History of Lead Mining in the Pennines' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A good synoptic book about lead mining in the Pennines, from Derbyshire up to Northumberland. It covers a wide time period, from the initial post-Roman mining partnerships up to the age and decline of the large lead mining companies around the time of the first world war. Techniques and their refinement, and the social, economic and welfare aspects of lead mining are also given good coverage.

The book is accessible to a non-specialist audience. It’s dry at times, but generally quite readable.

Review of 'Karst and Caves of Morecambe Bay' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A collection of unpublished typewritten+scanned pages, compiled and published posthumously. It’s sometimes a bit hard to decipher the author’s editorial scribbles, and sometimes hard to separate evidenced observations from supposition. However, it’s an interesting collection of data about caves in the Morecambe Bay area, and an interesting look into the history of their research.