46 Geological Queries regarding Basalt, tc. 
Queries, which I have taken the liberty of putting, in p. 12 of 
your xlviith volume, and pages 122 and 251 of your last volume, 
and that he will favour myself and many others of your Readers, 
to whom I know the same would be highly agreeable, with his 
full and explicit answers, to all such of these queries, as his 
local knowledge of the northern parts of England, may now, or 
hereafter enable him. 
Particularly, as my 2d question intimates, as to Lhe fact, whether 
or not, the ‘* great whin sill’’ or stratum of Basalt (shown in 
p- 152 of his ‘* Treatise on a Section of the Strata,’”’ &e. a very 
useful and cheap Work, printed and sold by Preston, of New- 
eastle) has not such a continuous edge on the surface, as clearly 
indicates it to form, like each of the other principal Strata, a 
vast extended plane (having, curved parts), within the Earth, 
conformally, with its under-lieing and with its over-lieing strata: 
although is great variation of thickness, from eight fathoms to 
more than thirty fathoms (as is mentioned, p. 41 of the Treatise) 
may occasion its basset-range to assume, locally, the appearance 
of detached and over-lieing masses of Basalt, so as very closely 
to “ resemble those of the King’s Park at Edinburgh,” as Mr. 
Winch has truly observed, in page 101 of your xlviith volume. — 
It seems therefore material I should mention here, that since 
Mr. Winch made this remark, the environs of Edinburgh have, | 
for the first time [ believe, been mapped by an experienced Mi- 
neral Surveyor, Mr. John Farey Sen., who is said to have minutely 
examined every part of the surface of the District; the immediate 
object of which Survey was, to ascertain the situations, extent 
' and positions, of the porous and the water-tight Strata or Dykes, 
which supply or intercept the springs of Water, in the district 
around that City; and from which examination it results, as I 
am informed*, that ** the Strata of the King’s Park,’ are now 
divested, of all the peculiarities which, on the one hand certain 
Jamesonian Theorists, from the application of their Geognostic 
Dogmas to insufficient Observations, had inferred and said, as to 
the same consisting,of unconformably over-lieing Basaltic masses, 
as detached parts, of the most recently formed or latest deposited 
Strata, of the district ; and on the other hand, what certain Play= 
fairian . 
* Lately, ina Letter from a Friend in Edinburgh, who says, that a manu 
script copy of such parts of the Report of Mr. Farey, as have been delivered 
to the Lord Provost and Corporation, which describe the Strata and relate 
* tothe Springs, isin prevate circulation there. It wilf remain now therefore | 
to be seen, whether the Edinburgians, who hitherto have so readily and 
warmly entered into disputes on Geological Theories, will cause these lo- 
calized descriptions of the principal Strata, and their very curious ranges 
and positions, in the vicinity of their City, to be published, and candidly 
examined: and whether they will in any way call for, and make the large 
Mineral Map known, from whence, as my Correspondent says, these de- 
. scriptions 
ee 
