a! me 
of Northumberland and Durham. 13 
perhaps, no one can safely say) “ are met with in every Colliery” 
of this district (p. 466); or even ‘*in most places where iron- 
stone is found in the shales, not only in the Newcastle Coal- 
formation, but also in the metalliferous Limestone district, upon 
which it rests,” (p. 364 vol. xlv.)? 
A particular answer, mentioning as many places (and if prae- 
ticable the strata also, with reference to Forster’s Section) as 
possible, where such shells have been actually found, will infi- 
nitely more oblige the querist, than any general answer whatever 
to this question. 
4th. In the horeing for Coals at Dinsdale on the Tees (p. 466), 
were any real Coal-seams, however thin, actually penetrated? 
or were ever real Coal-measures or metals, proved in this place ?, 
The querist hopes his solicitude on this head may be pardoned 
by Mr. W., when he mentions, that to him, when some years 
ago hastily viewing this district, Dinsdale seemed to be situated 
above the magnesian Lime, on a part of the British Series, 
wherein no Coal-seams have yet to his knowledge been proved. 
oth. Was it near Wainfizet on the Lincolnshire Coast, that 
_ fragments of a black (brown?) Coal resembling that of Bovey 
were washed on shore, together with bituminous Shale containing 
numerous Shells? The querist has been induced, for two rea- 
sons, thus to frame his question ; first, because Mr. W. intimates, 
that the same kind of shale is a swbhsiratum to the Chalk, which 
the strata S of Wainfleet must be; and next, because the foot 
of the hill on the west side of Bolingbroke in the range of these 
strata, produces such gray, bituminous, shelly, shale, and near 
thereto on the NE of Rathby, they were boreing in search of 
Coals, at the time he visited this district, in the clunch Clay ; 
the same part of the series of British strata, in which, at another 
time, he found the thin Coal-formation of the Yorkshire east 
moorlands (p. 466) to be situated. Whereas Louth appeared 
clearly to him to stand, on the top of all the Chalk Strata: if 
therefore any such beds of shale resembling Coal-measures, 
especially seams of Coal, were there found, in or near to the 
London Clay (on which Alford stands), it would prove a fact 
yuite new to the querist; except perhaps, that he once heard, 
without giving credence thereto, that Coals appear above the 
Chalk, somewhere to the east of the Medway near the southern 
shore of the Thames ? 
Not doubting Mr. W’s friendly reception of the above queries 
and hints, or that the answers to be expected thereupon will in- 
terest many, 
a 
I remain, 
_ Jan, 2, 1816. A Constant READER. 
IV. On 
