1855.] Mr. Sopioith on the Minitig Districts, 57 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 9. 



Rev. John Barlow, P\R.S. Vice-President and Secretary, 

 in the Chair. 



Thomas Sopwith, F.R.S. F.G.S. M.R.I. 



MEMBER OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE. 



Ow the Mining Districts of the North of England, 



Mr. Sopwith described the North of England as the central 

 portion of the island of Great Britain, lying midway between the 

 extreme north of Scotland and the south coast of England ; well 

 defined in three directions, by the Scottish border on the north, and 

 by the ocean on the east and west : midway also, as regards its 

 surface elevations, between the level of the sea and the highest 

 mountains of Britain ; and the chief strata of this district as also 

 nearly midway in the well-defined series of stratified rocks. South- 

 ward, its limits are less definite; but the most important mines of 

 coal, iron, and lead, being in the counties of Northumberland, 

 Durham, and Cumberland, the illustrations were at present confined 

 to these counties. The importance of these minerals imparts interest 

 to the several circumstances connected with them ; and the models, 

 maps, and drawings exhibited were selected in order to present, as 

 clearly as could be done in the brief limits of an hour's discourse, 

 the conditions of physical geography, the detailed as well as the 

 general position, depth, and sub-divisions of strata, the mode of 

 working coal, iron, and lead, and the character of the more re- 

 markable antiquities. 



A large map, on a scale of one inch to a mile, showed, by appro- 

 priate colouring, the extent of country drained by the rivers Coquet, 

 Wansbeck, Blyth, Tyne, Wear, and Tees, on the ef^stern side of the 

 district, and by the river p]den on the western side towards Carlisle. 

 Of these rivers, the Tyne is at once seen to be the most extensive 

 and important. The hills between these rivers, and the lands ad- 

 joining them, seldom exceed 2000 feet in height, and it is only 

 recently that any correct measurement of the elevations has been 

 commenced by the Ordnance Survey. Some of these were described 

 as indicating the height of the moors, where traversed by the turnpike 

 road from Middleton in Teesdale, to Alston — the 10th milestone, 

 southward from Alston, being 1880* 39 ft. above the mean level of the 

 sea, and the 8th milestone on same road, 1963*37 feet. The church 



