44 MR. E. W. BINNEY ON THE ORIGIN OF IRONSTONES. 



and zinc. The blackbands generally contain many remains of 

 shells and fishes, with a good deal of bisulphide of iron. 



The position of the bed of haematite at Ipstones, is between 

 the upper part of the rough rock and the Woodhead Hill stone, 

 somewhere near about the position of the 9 inch seam of coal 

 in the Author's section of the Lower Coal Field of Lancashire.* 

 In other districts where this little seam is found (and it is 

 more constant in its thickness over a great distance than most 

 other coals), some large deposits of carbonate of iron are met 

 with in the shales above it ; so iron then appeared generally 

 present in the waters of the carboniferous sea, and the cause 

 of the deposit at Ipstones being preserved from being con- 

 verted into a protoxide, most probably arose from there being 

 a less quantity of vegetable matter in the waters thereabouts 

 than had been generally the case during the deposition of the 

 carboniferous strata. The position of Ipstones, near to the 

 carboniferous limestone of Derbyshire, in the western part of 

 which, not far from Newhaven House, in Hartington, a 

 distance of about eight miles, a vein of red iron ore occurs, f 

 may also point to a source from which it could have come, 

 and thus shew that there was no necessity for it to have been 

 conveyed a very great distance from its probable source to 

 the locality where it is now found. There is at present no 

 evidence to prove the exact date of the formation of the vein 

 of haematite above alluded to; but it was most certainly after 

 the deposition of the mountain limestone, and it may have 

 been ejected from below during the time of the deposition of 

 the Ipstones bed, and part of it conveyed in water to the 

 latter place. 



* See Section at p. 184, Vol. X., of the Society's Memoirs, 

 t Vol. I., p. 265 of Farcy's General View of the Agriculture and Minerals 

 of Derbyshire. Besides this instance, I may mention the occurrence of 

 considerable quantities of oxide of iron found associated with the lead and 

 copper deposits of Mixon and other places, not more than four miles from 

 Ipstones. 



