64 REPORT — 1866. 



On a Peculiar Denudation of a Coal-Seam in Coates's Park CoUiery, 



By James Oakes. 



This denudation was discovered in working tlie " Lower Hard " seam of coal at 

 Coates's Park Colliery in 1859 ; and it appeared to be the eflect of a river which 

 once existed, but has now disappeared, about 500 yards in -^vidth, which has as yet 

 been traced only in a southwardly direction for nearly six miles. The whole seam 

 (about 4 ft. thick) was broken up and deposited in "disjointed masses throughout 

 the course of this supposed river, in one instance these thicknesses of the seam 

 being found piled upon each other ; and where no coal existed, the underclay (or 

 clunch), which ordinarily is about 2 feet thick, was heaped up, in one case, to a 

 depth of 26 feet. A great body of water must have effected this ; and the nodules 

 of ironstone found in the underclay, by their worn shape, show that they have been 

 subjected to the action of a strong current. 



Further Observations on, and Additions to, the List of Fossils found in the 

 Boulder-Clay of Caithness, N.B. By Chaeles W. Peach. 



'' At the Meetings of the Society in 1862 and 1 864 1 laid before the Members lists 

 of the fossils then found in the Boulder-Clay of Caithness. In the first paper, I 

 suggested that " the mode of transport to the shores of Caithness was by water- 

 borne ice and not by local glaciers." That opinion I still retain. I have no objec- 

 tion to the deposit being called glacial, believing, that, in the first instance, the 

 materials were partly derived from glaciers formed at a distance from Caithness. 

 These glaciers descended to the sea, and were launched into it ; and from them ice- 

 bergs were broken oft'. These, when so launched, picked up some of the sea-bottom, 

 witli its organisms, &c., and when on their voyages, wherever they touched, whether 

 on the bottom of the sea, or the shores of the land, they added to their burdens, by 

 picking up more organisms, stones, &c. ; and, when finally stranded, mud, stones, 

 sand, and the shells of Caithness became intermingled with them. As the icebergs 

 slowly dissolved, the burden was dropped in a pell-mell manner. The ice pro- 

 tected the materials, and prevented the sea from levelling and arranging them, and 

 giving the deposit a stratified appearance. The gradual dissolving of the bergs 

 gave time to the clay to solidify, and thus it was preserved when its ciirrier and 

 protector was no more. Once "firm, especially in deepish water, little injury could 

 be done to it. It sufters most when exposed to frost and atmospheric iufiuences. 

 The story of the voyaging and gathering of the icebergs is well told by the contents 

 of their left burdens; for Crag, as seen by its shells, &c., Gault chalk and green- 

 sand, by the flints, corals, and Foraminifera, with portions of chalk, both hard 

 and soft — some so soft that it may be used for writing with — Lias and Oolite, 

 by their Belemnites, Ammonites, fossil wood, Septaria, &c., Silurian, by its me- 

 tamorphic limestones, quartz, and other rocks, Cambrian, by its gneiss, &c., granite, 

 porphjTy, &c., are not wanting. Then we have the abundance of Old Eed Sand- 

 stone, turned up and mingled with all the above by the large bergs as they bumped 

 and grated before finally resting. These remains form an interesting and sug- 

 gestive collection. The organisms are entombed in a hard and stubborn matrix. 

 It has, however, been made to give up its ancient dead, and to show that, at the 

 time of its formation, life was as abimdant in the sea as it is now. AVith few excep- 

 tions, the same species are found in it as are now living around our own shores, some 

 few in the Arctic seas only ; and probably one or two may be extinct. I say may he, 

 from having been taught great caution by so many of those said to he extinct having 

 been from time to time dragged from ocean-depths by our active dredgers.^ 



" The frao^mentary state of the organisms proves that they could not have lived and 

 died where now found ; for, with two exceptions (two small specimens of Anomia 

 squamula), I have not seen two valves united amongst the hundreds gathered by 

 myself and other fellow-workers. The only way of accounting for the escape of 

 these delicate shells from destruction is, that they, with many other perfect minute 

 univalves, had been sheltered in depressions in some of the ponderous masses they 

 were fellow-voyagers with." He mentioned that chalk-flints were not uncommon 

 in the boulder-clay and all over Caithness (even on the small island of Stroma) 

 wherever the peat had been removed. Several species of chalk Foraminifera and 



