4.4-8 Notices respecting New Books. 



Ham Smith, and to observe, that immense pains seem to have 

 been bestowed by the Author on the ample stratigraphical de- 

 tails which the colours on these maps portray. 



The Cumberland and Westmoreland maps, in the moun- 

 tainous district of the Lakes, also in the anomalous range of 

 low hills at foot of the lofty Fells on the north-east of Appleby, 

 and the Northumberland maps in the Cheviot Hills, exhibit 

 parts of those more ancient and highly inclined strata, which 

 form the general basis of our island, consisting here of masses 

 of granite, sienite, porphyry, &c, irregular in shape, and va- 

 rious in position, in their slaty matrix ; on which older rocks, 

 the Author's series of strata (in which are plentifully im- 

 bedded animal and vegetable remains, affording the means 

 of their identification) rest in unconformable position; that 

 is, they cover the edges of the schistous strata, instead of 

 their planes exclusively, which last is the manner in which re- 

 gular strata rest on each other. Except in two cases, these 

 older rocks in the maps before us, are surrounded by the car- 

 boniferous or under-coal limestone, dipping or declining from 

 these rocks on every side : the first of these cases, include four 

 or five isolated patches of very irregularly coarse sandstone (the 

 old red sandstone of some writers) ; and the latter exception is 

 made by an unconformably-overlying mass of red marl (lo- 

 cally imbedding sandstone, which some rather absurdly call 

 nexo red sandstone) which occupies all the coast of Cumber- 

 land southward of St. Bees Head, and almost all the remain- 

 der of its coast, northward of Maryport, as well as the whole 

 flat of the Vale of Eden, as far up as the town of Kirkby Ste- 

 phen in Westmoreland. 



The carboniferous limestone receives upon it, first the lower 

 coal-measures (being without workable seams) interlaid by 

 thin limestone rocks, and intersected vertically by veins of lead 

 ore, particularly about Aldstone and to the eastward of it ; 

 then, on these lead-mine measures, rest conformably, the seams 

 of coal (of an inferior and second rate quality) alternating with 

 their shales and sandstones ; and again, on these, and still fur- 

 ther from the slaty mountains, are found, the thick and valu- 

 able seams of coal, with their alternating shales and sandstones, 

 around Newcastle, in the Tyne and Wear district, and near 

 Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport, on the western coast, 

 and in a few other situations ; and again, upon these coal-mea- 

 sures, both in the coast lands of Durham, and south-east cor- 

 ner of Northumberland, and also in Cumberland, south of 

 Whitehaven, there repose unconformably, the magnesian lime- 

 stone rocks, which at length become conformably covered by 

 the red marl : which last, though of great thickness, and very 



remarkable, 



