OF THE NOKTU-WEST OF ENGLAND. 211 



society what information I possess relative to these deposits, 

 I shall not be deterred from doing so by the fragmentary con- 

 dition in which it at present is. 



Most of the geological maps now before the public, shew 

 the permian beds in a well marked line, bounding the upper 

 coal field and separating the latter from the trias ; and a 

 stranger unacquainted with the subject, except from the in- 

 formation he had derived from maps and books, would expect 

 to find these deposits occupying nearly as marked a character 

 in the north-west counties of England, as they do in the 

 magnificient escarpment of magnesian limestone, extending' 

 from the Tyne to a little north of the town of Nottingham. 

 However, when he comes to examine for himself, he will 

 soon find that it is by no means an easy matter even to get a 

 glimpse of the beds, much' less to follow them over a hundred 

 miles of country. 



The great importance of these deposits, constituting as they 

 do the upper boundary of our valuable coal fields, and oiften, 

 with the trias, hiding them from our view, is well known, and, 

 therefore, every fact connected with them, although unin- 

 teresting it may at first sight appear, ought to be treasured 

 up and preserved as of national importance. Notwithstanding 

 all the diligence that may be used in carefully collecting and 

 registering facts, it is to be feared that many years must 

 elapse, before a perfectly correct map of the permian beds of 

 the north-west of England can be attempted to be made with 

 success. 



The vast accumulations of drift which cover the district, 

 no doubt, in some measure, hide the permian like other 

 deposits from our view, but I am led to believe that the un- 

 conformability of the permian with the lowest member of the 

 trias (the upper new red sandstone), is the chief cause why 

 the former is so little seen. 



