104 REPORT — 1861. 



the Penine chain ; and recently Mr. Kirkby has produced a carefully written and 

 well-considered meraoii', showino: the relations of the whole group, by comparing 

 its sti-ucture and palseontological contents in Durham with those in South York- 

 shire. "SMailst, in addition, my associates of the Geological Sun-ey, particularly 

 Mr. Aveline, have been carefully delmeating the area of these beds in their northern 

 range from Nottingham through Yorkshire, much yet remains to be done in cor- 

 relating the Permian rocks lying to the west of the Peuiue ridge, or where wo are 

 now assembled, with their eastern equivalents. 



Already, however, great strides have been made towards this desirable end. 

 Thus, Mr. Binney has indicated the succession in the neighbom-hood of Manchester, 

 and has shown us that there some of the characteristic fossils of the eastern magne- 

 sian limestone exist in red marl and limestones subordinate thereto, and that these 

 are clearly underlain by other red sandstones, shales, and limestones, which he terms 

 Lower Permian. He has fm-ther followed these Lower Peimian beds to the west 

 and north-west, and finds them expanding into considerable thicknesses at Astley, 

 Scarisbrick, and other places where they overlie the coal-measures, and he has also 

 traced them into Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Dumfriesshire. In the last case 

 he went far to prove that which I suggested many years ago, that the red sand- 

 stones of Dumfriesshire, containing the large footprints of chelonians, as described 

 by Sir W. Jardine, are of Lower Permian age. 



This view of the relations of the Permian rocks of the north-west has been also 

 taken by Professor Harkness, and this summer he has successfully worked it out, 

 and has definitely applied the Pennian classification to large tracts in Cmuberland, 

 as explained in a letter to myself. He finds that the breccias and sandstones of 

 Kirkby-Stephen and Appleby, which at the latter place have a thickness of three 

 thousand feet, extend northward on the west side of the Eden (the breccia being 

 replaced by false-bedded sandstones with footprints), and attain near Carlisle the 

 enormous thickness of about five thousand feet. These beds he classes unhesi- 

 tatingly as Lower Pennian, because he finds them to be overlain (near Ormsby) by 

 a group of clays, sandstones, and mag-nesian lunestones, containing pecidiar plant- 

 remains and shells of the genus Schizodus, representing in his opinion the marl- 

 slate and magnesian limestone of Durham. These, again, support beds equivalent 

 to the Zechstein, and the last are covered by the Triassic sandstone of the Solway. 



A very striking fact, noticed by Professor Harlmess, and corroborative of earlier 

 researches made by INIr. Binney, is the existence of footprints in the Lower Permian 

 of Cumberland, similar to those of Corncockle Moor in Dumfriesshire, where, from 

 my own observations, including those of last year, these Lower Permian sandstones 

 have, I am convinced, a greater thickness even than that which is assigned to them 

 in Cumberland. 



Notwithstanding these discoveries, we have still to show the continuous exist- 

 ence of the Lower Red Sandstone of Shropshire, Worcestershhe, and Staffordshire, 

 which I have classed as the lower member of the Permian rocks, and to decide 

 whether it be really such lower member only, or is to be regarded as the equivalent 

 of the whole Permian group, mider differing mineral conditions. With the exten- 

 sion of the Geological Survey this pomt will, doubtless, be satisfactorily adjusted, 

 and we shall then know to what part of the series we are to attach the plant-bear- 

 ing red beds of Coventry and Wai-wick, described as Pennian by Ramsay and his 

 associates. We have also to show that, in its northern course, the lower red 

 sandstone of the central coimties, with its calcareous conglomerates, graduates into 

 the succession exhibited at Manchester, thence expanding northwards. Already, 

 however, we have learned that in our own little England, which contains excellent 

 normal as well as variable types of all the palseozoic deposits, there exists proof 

 that the Permian rocks, according to the original definition of the same, present to 

 the observer who examines them to the west as well as to the east of the Penine 

 chain, nearly as great diversities of lithological structure, in this short distance, as 

 those which distingiush the strata of the same age in Eastern Russia in Europe fi'om 

 the original types of the group in Saxony and other parts of Germany. 



Geological Swvey and Government School of Mines, 3Iincral Statistics, and Colonial 

 Surveys. — As I preside for the first time over this Section since I was placed at the 

 head of the Geological Suney of Britain, I may be excused for making an allusion 

 to that national egtablishmept, by stating that the public now take a lively interest 



