THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE, 



No. XX.— FEBRTrARY, 1866. 



I. — ^A FEW Eemarks on the so-called Lowee New Eed 



Sandstones of Central Yorkshire. 



By E. W. BiNNEY, F.R.S., F.G.S., etc. 



I HAVE lately had. an opportunity of taking a hasty examination 

 of the part of Yorkshire lying between Bramham Moor and 

 Fountains Abbey for the especial purpose of examining the 

 ''Lower New Eed Sandstone," so elaborately described by Professor 

 Sedgwick many years ago, and lately alluded to by Professor John 

 Phillips, in a paper read before the Geological Society. 



Having of late years devoted considerable attention to the White- 

 haven, Astley, and Moira Sandstones, rocks lying above all the 

 higher Coal-measures containing the Spirorbis-limestone, on the 

 western side of the Pennine Chain, and under the soft Eed Sandstone, 

 of Permian age, of Collyhurst, near Manchester, and Kirkby- Stephen 

 and Hilton, and which Sandstones very much resemble some of the 

 Millstone-grits, I was prepared to find the Bramham Moor, Plump- 

 ton, and Knaresborough Sandstones to be Permian Sandstones, such 

 as they have been represented to be by the two above-named learned 

 Professors ; but, so far as my examination went, I was unwillingly 

 compelled to forego the pleasure of finding what I was specially in 

 search of, namely, a Lower Eed Sandstone of Permian age, and to 

 put up with what I really found, namely. Millstone-grit, most pro- 

 bably the Upper Millstone of Halifax, as described by Professor 

 Phillips, and adopted by the Geological Survey, but more commonly 

 known and described in Lancashire as Eough Eock, and by Mr. 

 Parey as his " Third Grit." 



The districts chiefly examined were the quarries on Bramham 

 Moor, kindly shown me by Mr. Kell, the agent to Mr. Lane Fox, 

 the Plumpton Eocks, the rocks lying between the latter place and 

 the escarpment under Knaresborough Castle, and the Gritstones and 

 Flagstones of the Skell, west of Fountains Abbey. 



Before proceeding to describe more in detail the sections which 

 came under my notice, it will be as well for me to state that I con- 

 sider the Lower Eed Sandstone of Kirkby- Woodhouse, in Notts, the 

 Pebbly Dam sand in Derbyshire on the south, and the Clacks-Heugh 

 and Tynemouth yellow Sandstones on the north, although undoubted 



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