12 



GEOLOGICAL PAPERS 

 RELATING TO THE NORTH OF ENGLAND 



Read at the Newcastle Meeting of the British Association, 1889. 



S. A. ADAMSON, F.G.S., 

 Leeds. 



Amongst the many valuable papers read and reports presented at 

 the recent annual meeting of the Parliament of Science, may be 

 briefly mentioned the following: that eminent glacialist, the President 

 of the Section, Prof. J. Geikie, F.R.S., in his inaugural address, 

 described the glacial accumulations of Northern Europe, with 

 references to those of our own country; J. E. Marr, M.A., F.G.S., 

 ' Dynamic Metamorphism of Skiddaw Slates ' (he described a belt of 

 Skiddaw Slates running along the W. side of the Cross Fell escarpment, 

 from Melmerby to Roman Fell, and had noted several large masses of 

 quartz ; in a good exposure on the E. side of Brownber, the quartz 

 veins had been evidently intruded along bedding planes before the 

 main folding took place ; they had since been extremely contorted, 

 and the slates had been altered into a rock composed chiefly of 

 mica and secondary quartz) ; J. J. H. Teall, M.A., F.G.S., ' The 

 Amygdaloids of the Tynemouth Dyke ' (this dyke is exposed in the 

 angle formed by the breakwater and the cliff on which the Priory 

 stands, and also in the cutting near the railway-station; a typical 

 specimen was said to consist essentially of porphyritic crystals, or 

 crystalline aggregate of a felspar closely allied to anorthite, embedded 

 in a dark finely-crystalline ground-mass, composed of augite, lath- 

 shaped felspars and interstitial matter ; the history of the rock so 

 far as it is recorded in microscopic structure closed the paper); 

 T. P. Barkas, F.G.S., ' Notes on numerous newly-discovered Fossil 

 Footprints on the Lower Carboniferous Sandstone of Northumber- 

 land, near Otterburn ' (the pith of this interesting paper appeared in 

 the September iV"«/«ra//^/, p. 270); T. Mellard Reade, F.G.S., 'The 

 Physiography of the Lower Trias' (after reviewing various theories 

 accounting for the marine current-bedded sandstones constituting 

 the base of the Trias, known as the Bunter, he suggested that 

 a granitic area, such as would be exposed now by an elevation of, 

 say, 1,000 ft, occupying the site of the English Channel, together 

 with the Old Red Sandstone beds of the anticlinal axes connecting 

 the Mendips with the Belgian coal-field, along with the immense 

 denudation of the Carboniferous Sandstones of the Pennines, etc., 

 added to the destruction of the Old Red of Herefordshire, may 

 have supplied the materials for these sandstones) ; Prof. W. C. 

 Williamson, F.R.S., ' Report on Coal Plants: On the state of the 



Naturalist, 



