326 The New Iron-fields of England. [ July, 
Glasgow districts are rapidly diminishing, while every year the 
demand for iron is increasing. How this demand was to be met, 
without drawing largely on the resources of foreign countries, is a 
problem which received its solution just at the time when it began 
to occupy men’s minds. The soluticn was the discovery of those 
“New Iron-fields of England” which oceupy a broad belt of country 
traversing our island almost from the shores of the English Channel 
to those of the German Ocean. 
This belt is formed of a range of hills with scarped ridges, and 
longitudinal valleys, rising to the eastward above the plains of the 
central counties. In this range are included geologically the Cleve- 
land Hills of Yorkshire and the Cotteswold Hills of Gloucester and 
Somerset ; but it must not be supposed that the strata are equally 
rich in iron all along the entire range, although the representative 
formations in which the iron occurs may be present throughout. 
This range at several points both in Yorkshire and Gloucester- 
shire reaches elevations exceeding one thousand feet above the sea, 
and terminates in the coast-cliffs of Saltburn on the north, and 
those of Lyme Regis on the south. It is composed of Jurassic 
formations,* or speaking more definitely, the upper members of the 
Lias and the lower members of the Oolite series. From the base 
of the range the Lower Lias and New Red Maz! stretch away in 
shghtly undulating plains towards the west, and with some shght 
modifications the general succession of the strata, and the form of the 
hills as they occur in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, and 
Somersetshire, may be expressed as in the following diagramatic 
section. 
Fic, 1.—DIAGRAMATIC SECTION, TO ILLUSTRATE THE POSITION OF THE LiAssic 
AND Lower OOLITIC SERIES. 
e a 
Red Marl. (a) Lower Lias. (d) Lower Oolite. 
(b) Middle Lias or Marlstone; the dark band represents the Ironstone. 
(c) Upper Lias. (e) Lias Limestone. 
There are two positions in the above section where the iron- 
stones occur, the lower being at the top of the Middle Lias, or 
Marlstone, the upper at the base of the Great Oolite. This latter, 
however, is almost exclusively confined to Northamptonshire, and 
by far the most important member is the Middle Lias iron-stone of 
the counties of York, Lincoln, and Oxford. The range also touches 
the counties of Rutland, Leicester, and Warwick, in all of which 
* “Jurassic’’—a good term—taken from the Jura range on the borders of 
France and Switzerland, whereby to include the Liassic and Oolitic formations 
under one name. 
+ The main difference is, that in Yorkshire the Great Oolite rests on the Upper 
Lias, in Gloucestershire it is replaced by the Inferior Oolite. 
