1822.] Messrs. Young and Bird’s Replyto Mr. Winch. 249 
but such as have carefully examined it, and compared it with 
Mr. W.’s description, will think with us, that whatever more we 
might have said in the way of reprehension, we could not well 
say less. Of the existence of that paper, as Mr. W. might have 
seen from the note itself, we had no knowledge till within a few 
days of the time when the note was printed. We were aware, 
that in 1814 and 1815, Mr. W. collected some information from 
Mr. Bird and others, concerning the strata of this part of 
Yorkshire ; but knowing, from his own letters, that he was then 
very imperfectly acquainted with the subject, and never hearing 
that he had subsequently made any excursions into the district, 
we could not suppose that he had attempted to write a geological 
description of it; and, on meeting with the document, we could 
not but regret that such a paper had found its way into the 
Transactions of a Society so respectable. Mr. W. it seems, has, 
at some remote periods, travelled through the district on busi- 
ness, and taken notes ; but however frequent his journeys, and 
however copious his notes, his own paper, independent of what 
we know otherwise, warrants us to say, that he has not given the 
district that kind of examination which is necessary for writing 
a geological description of it. We have, perhaps, traversed the 
counties of Durham and Northumberland more frequently than 
he has done our district ; yet we are far from supposing ourselyes 
qualified to give, from our own obseryations, a tolerable account 
of their geology. We were detracting much less from Mr. W.’s 
fame, when we intimated that his paper was a compilation from 
very scanty and incorrect materials, than we should have done, 
had we supposed it possible for Mr. W. after a personal exami- 
nation, to write a description so confused, so defective, and so 
imaccurate. We have paid him at least this compliment, that 
we could not rate his talents solow. Part of the blunders in his 
paper might indeed be placed to the score of inadvertency or 
defective memory; such as his describing the red sandstone of 
the vale of the Tees as ‘‘ devoid of mica,” with which, in most 
parts where we examined it, it greatly abounds ; his stating that 
the ironstone of the coal measures is the material employed at 
the alum works in manufacturing Roman cement, whereas that 
material is obtained in the alum shale, and does not consist of 
ironstone, but of lias nodules, the nodules containing much iron 
or pyrites being rejected as unfit for the purpose; and his de- 
scribing the oolite as cropping out at Filey Head, and stating 
that “ with this material, York Minster and other edifices in the 
neighbourhood, are constructed.” These, and other minor mis- 
takes, might possibly be committed by one who had examined 
the district. But how could any gentleman who had spent even 
but a day or two in acquiring only a tolerable idea of the dispo- 
sition of the strata, have produced such a mass of error and con- 
fusion as is found in Mr. W.’s description of our hills? He 
speaks of Danby Beacon as part of “ the northern escarpment 
