66 report — 1865. 



and currents. The stones from New Red Sandstone quarries, of which many old 

 churches have heen huilt, furnish [a. specimen of atmospheric effects, namely, a 

 very irregular fitting or roughening of the surface, without any special or deter- 

 minate shape being produced. . . . Some of the Erimham rocks furnish evidences 

 of their having heen shaped by a cause forcibly propelled in a particular direction, 

 so as to wear away soft and hard parts alike. Many of them present forms which 

 show that they have resisted atmospheric action since they rose above the sea. 

 Numerous blocks may be seen with angles nearly as sharp as when they were 

 originally displaced, and the sides of many pillars, passages, and crevices reveal the 

 jointed surfaces of the rocks as fresh-looking as when the displacements and rents 

 occurred. ... At Brimham there are appearances which can- only be explained by- 

 marine agency. First, a line of cliff extending along the western and north- 

 western side of the eminence. A detached part of this coast-line, behind Mrs. 

 Weatherhead's house, shows a projecting arched rock which a geologist familiar 

 with sea-coast scenery could have no more hesitation in referring to oceanic action 

 than if he beheld it still whitened by the spray. Further to the north, this line 

 of cliff, in some places nearly 100 feet high, shows many of the more striking 

 characteristics of a modern sea-coast. Here an immense block of millstone-grit 

 has tumbled down through an undermining process, — there a block seems ready to 

 fall, but in that perilous position it has probably remained since the close of the 

 intraglacial or ice-floe period. On the top of this old sea-cliff, and extending for 

 a considerable distance inland, may be seen the rocky pillars which form the main 

 attraction of Brimham. They present resemblances to mushrooms, tables, anvils, 

 and trees. Generally speaking, they are largest at the top, and smallest under- 

 neath. The Idol Mock, which is about 20 feet high, and upwards of 40 feet in 

 circumference, rests on a pedestal varying from about 3 feet to little more than 

 18 inches in diameter. The undermined appearance presented by this and other 

 rocks at Brimham, can only be explained by the laterally-operating agency of the 

 ocean. . . . Rain, assisted by detached pebbles of quartz, may have excavated some 

 of the rock-basins occurring on the upper surfaces of rocks. But at Brimham we 

 find basin-shaped hollows underneath rocks (the double basin, with a supporting 

 pillar, called the Kissing Chair, for instance) in situations to which the sea alone 

 could have gained access. . . . The Rocking-stones at Brimham present every indi- 

 cation of their being nearly in their original positions. At one time they must have 

 formed a continuation of the beds of millstone-grit, of which they are now only 

 the remains. The adjacent blocks or particles would appear to have been carried 

 or washed away, and the line of bedding between each rocking stone, and the block 

 beneath, must have been widened by the insinuating and erosive action of the 

 waves, so as to leave it with a sufficiently slender support to allow it to be easily 

 set in motion." Mr. Hull, in the Quart. Journ. of the Geol. Soc. (Aug. 1864), 

 has given an accoimt of similar " sea-shore rocks " as occurring in " multitudinous 

 assemblages" on the Peak Mountain in Derbyshire. To the observations of Mr. 

 Hull I would add, that as these rocks are found at an elevation of about 2000 

 feet above the sea, and in the most exposed situation, no one can say that the atmo- 

 sphere has not there had a fair chance of competing with the sea as a denuding 

 agent. But it would appear that many of the monuments the sea left behind 

 it thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years ago, have ever since mocked 

 the effects of rain and frost ; and if the sea-shore rocks of Brimham, the Peak, and 

 numerous other parts of England have retained their wave-worn shapes for so long a 

 period, what is to hinder them, secure within their mossy arniour, from continuing 

 to resist the storm and the waterspout until the sea shall again claim these monu- 

 ments as its own, and decompose them into the foundations of future continents. 



The Bed Sandstone of Nova Scotia. B>/ the Rev. A. W. M'Kat. 

 These are the newest rocks known within the colony, if we except the boulder- 

 drift. They are limited in their range to the neighbourhood of the Bay of Fundy. 

 The colony of Prince Edward Island consists wholly of them. Here they are 

 thicker and more compact, and are extensively used for building purposes. In 

 Nova Scotia this is never the case, on account of their softness and brittleness. 

 They arc found chiefly in the Valley of Kings and Annapolis; counties, bounded 



