TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 61 



aud the East Rding of Yorkshire, as well as to a large portion of the North Riding 

 of the latter county. On this head I will first allude to the south side of the valley 

 of the Tees, a tract which I have long known, extending from Croft, by Middleton- 

 one-Row, to the town of Middlesborough, where the New Red Sandstone, of enor- 

 mous thickness, is covered by detritus and northern drift. At Middlesborough tlie 

 spirited ironmaster, Mr. Yaughan, being desirous of obtaining subterranean water 

 for the working of his engines, sunk an Artesian well to the depth of 1800 feet, 

 and at length reached a body of rock-salt, subordinate to the New Red Sandstone, 

 — in fact, without reaching even the surface of the magnesian limestone, through 

 which the deep coal-pits of the east coast of Durham are sunk to the extreme depth 

 at which coal has hitherto been worked in that county. If, then, the coal-measui-es 

 should be prolonged uudergi'omid to the south of the Tees (which, from my ob- 

 servation of the rocks between Seaton Carew and Hartlepool, I greatly doubt, as 

 there are symptoms of a basin-shaped arrangement of the strata), and should pass 

 imder the vale of Cleveland, and the hills of the eastern moorlands, what, I may 

 ask, would be the vast depth at which they could be won, by passing through the 

 oolites and lias, in addition to the New Red Sandstone and magnesian limestone ? 



In the excellent work on Yorkshire by Professor Phillips, and indeed on all 

 geological maps of England, it is shown that throughout a distance of many miles 

 the lower or improductive carboniferous rocks of limestone and millstone grit of 

 the Yorkshire Dales are at once surmounted by the magnesian limestone of the 

 Permian group. 



On the banks of the Tees, west of Darlington, wherever the magnesian limestone 

 forms the upper stratum, as at Conscliffe, it is at once underlaid by unproductive 

 millstone gTit, which on the west lies upon mountain-limestone ; the productive 

 coal-measure which ought to lie between the millstone grit and the Permian 

 rocks being entirely wanting owing, either to great denudation or to an ancient 

 elevation of the tract after the lower carboniferous period. This iiprise of the 

 older rocks seems also to form a southern border of the great Durham coal-basin. 

 In fact, no valuable coaly matter has ever had an existence in the tract extending 

 from Barnard Castle on the Tees, to the south of Harrogate. At the latter place 

 and its environs, we have, further, the clearest possible proof of the omission of all 

 the productive coal-strata ; for the Plumpton rocks aud conglomerates underlying 

 the magnesian limestone, and foi-ming, in my opinion, the base of the Permian 

 system, are seen to repose directly on improductive millstone giit, which, in its 

 turn, rests upon the mountain-limestone of the western dales of Yorkshire. 



But whilst I give this as not merely my opinion, and that also of Professors 

 Phillips and Sedgwick, who have surveyed the tract in question, and also that of 

 manjf sound geologists, I may state that Mr. Lonsdale Bradley, acting for my friend 

 Mr. "Webb, of Newstead Abbey, is conducting experimental borings through the 

 Red Sandstone aud magnesian limestone between Northallerton and the Tees, in 

 the persuasion that, as the mountain- or carboniferous limestone disappears rapidly 

 beneath the superjacent deposits to the east of Middleton Tyas, there may be found 

 a productive coal-field, like that of Durham or Leeds, between the strata which 

 they are now piercing and the subjacent carboniferous limestone. 



This view is well explained in the diagrams which Mr. Londsdale Bradley has 

 allowed me to exhibit on this occasion. I must, however, declare that I think the 

 probabilities are entirely against the success of this enterprise, though as geologists 

 we commend ^Mr. Webb for making this trial, by which he will have done good 

 service to our science. 



To the south of Harrogate the great coal-fields of Leeds and the West Riding 

 appear with a well-defined boundary of millstone grit on the north and west. To 

 the east, however, of the known boundary of these fields there is a fair probability 

 that some coal may be found to extend under the magnesian limestone aud New 

 Red Sandstone. 



As we proceed southwards along the escarpment of the magnesian limestone in 

 its range from Yorkshire into Nottinghamshire, and thu? tiank succe3sivel_y the 

 Sheffield aud Derbyshire coal-fields, we find a progressive thickening of the coal 

 which lies beneath the Permian rock. Whilst thin and poor beds only have as yet 

 been worked in the south of Y''orkshire beneath the magnesian limestone, we now 



