THE MOORLAND DISTRICT. 41 



The plants which lie in the shale and ironstone, belong to the same 

 tribes of cycadeae, ferns, and lycopodiform plants, as those which were 

 mentioned in the lower carboniferous sandstones ; but the species are 

 generally distinct. The sandstone is often filled with fragments of 

 carbonized wood, like so many pebbles ; and, occasionally, it contains 

 large carbonized branches. Its surfaces are generally black, with par- 

 ticles of the same substance. This series may be observed upon the 

 coast, from Gristhorpe Bay to near Scarborough, and from that town 

 northward to Cloughton Wyke ; and its lower sandstones appear along 

 the top of some of the high cliffs between Haiburn Wyke and the 

 Peak. Its course inland is on the north side of the tabular hills which 

 range from Scarborough to Hambleton ; but is not very easily defined 

 across so wild a surface of heath and bog. It is probably thickest, and 

 certainly is best known, in the vicinity of Scarborough. 



THE CALCAREOUS BED (No. 10) which is found at the top of this 

 carboniferous formation, has a considerable resemblance to the calcareous 

 layers which have been already described ; but its position under the 

 Kelloways rock, and the general character of its organic fossils, justifies 

 Mr. Smith's opinion, that it is referrible to the " cornbrash" limestone of 

 the southern counties. It is a thin, fissile, partially oolitic stone, re- 

 markably filled with terebratulse, trigonias, unioniform shells, and small 

 clypei. Gristhorpe Bay, and Redcliff, and the vicinity of Scarborough, 

 are the only points where I have seen it distinctly exposed ; and great 

 difficulties must always attend the efforts to trace so thin a rock across 

 the interior of the country. It has not yet been discovered on the 

 western side of the moorlands. 



HAVING thus noticed, in general terms, the characters of the car- 

 boniferous and oolitic formation, it remains to state, that of this whole 

 series, which measures, in some places, not less than seven hundred feet 

 in thickness, no part whatever is continued across the Humber, except 

 the calcareous strata. Indeed, I am in doubt whether any portion of the 

 sandstones, shales, and coal, is prolonged to the south so far as the river 



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