12 Geological Queries regarding the Coal-Strata 
longed axis of the earth, the earth’s rotary revolution would be 
as accurately marked, and the appearances of day and night, of 
the decay and the return of light, would as regularly succeed 
each other as after the creation of the sun. 
I am, sir, 
Your very obedient servant, 
Bath, Dec. 12, 1815. F,: E-~=s. 
Ill. Geolagical Queries, regarding the Coal-Straia of North- 
umierland and Durham, and “the Appearances of such in 
Lincolnshire. By A CoRRESPONDEN’. 
To Mr.Tilloch. 
on Ty is with great pleasure that I recognise in pages 
465 and 6, (though under the signature N. J. W.) a communi- 
eation “ on the localities of coal,” to be from the able pen of 
Nathaniel John Winch, esq., who so very kindly answered for- 
mer queries put by me on the same subject, in pages 198 and 
295 of your xlvth volume; and I am by this circumstance em- 
boldened, to again trouble him as follows; viz. 
Ist. Has it been ascertained, by actually tracing the Rocks 
and strata on the surface (as Afr. Smith has done in his Map), 
or by a sufficiently extensive and careful comparison of the 
successions of beds and organic remains therein imbedded, in 
the distant situations of Alston-Moor, and others W of Bywell, 
and N of the Coquet River, that the individual thin and nearly 
useless seams of Crow Coal* in the former situation, thicken and 
improve in quality, so as to become in the latter and more 
northerly situations, tolerably good seams of workable Coal? 
2d. Do the over-lying or mountain caps of Basalt in the 
northern and western parts of Northumberland, appear to be 
unconformable+ to the Strata beneath them-?, that is, do they 
lie upon the edges of their substrata, and have no place im the 
series of strata to the east of their sites ? Or, are they detached ~ 
parts or hummocks of the great whin sill (Forster fath. 425 to 
437)?: whose continuous basset-edge would in such case be 
traceable, from Dufton-fell and Caldron-snout (p. 41), north- 
eastward to the sea. 
3d. Can it be depended on, that small shells of Muscles 
(whether of sa/t or fresh water origin, I do not ask, because this, 
* Of which Mr, W. Forster enumerates seven distinct beds, in the Lead- 
mining series, from fathom 244 to fattiom 602 of bis Section. 
- Are the re in these districts, any masses of Red Marl or soft red Sand- 
stone, accompanying these Basaltic Caps, or otherwise, in an uncumform- 
able manner? 
perhaps, 
