.54 Binney — Lower New Red Sandstones. 



Flags of Lancashire and Yorksliire, so generally foimd under the 

 Halifax or Upper Millstone. I am not aware that either Professors 

 Sedgwick or Phillips ever contended that these rocks were of any 

 other than Carboniferous age ; but I think it desirable to allude to 

 them, for the purpose of showing that the Plumpton and Knares- 

 borough Sandstone is bounded on the north and south by a very 

 similar, if not the same, Sandstone, covered unconformably by yellow 

 Magnesian Limestone, and resting conformably upon Carboniferous 

 rocks. So far as my memory serves me the section of the beds was 

 as the following woodcut. 



3 



Fig. 5. — Section between Fountains Abbey and Eipon. 



1. Yellow Limestone. 2. Coarse brown Gritstone. 



3. Arenaceous Flags. 



Both Professors give very little evidence to prove that the Lower 

 New Eed Sandstone of Plumpton and Knaresborough, which they 

 admit is quite unconformable to the overlying Permian rocks, is 

 unconformable to the Carboniferous rocks on which it rests. So far 

 as I have seen, all these gritstones appear to gradually pass into, 

 and are quite conformable to, the Carboniferous rocks on which they 

 repose. This is the case at Bramham Moor and Fountains Abbey. 

 I could not prove the same fact so clearly at Plumpton and Knares- 

 borough, except that at the former place the dip of the Brown-Edge 

 Stone was abou.t the same both in angle and direction ; but a more 

 careful survey will probably determine this point. 



I have considerable diffidence in questioning the conclusions of 

 two such veteran geologists as the respected Professors of Cambridge 

 and Oxford, especially on any part of the Geology of the County of 

 York, to which they have devoted so much of their attention ; still 

 Professor Sedgwick honestly admits, in the quotation before given, 

 that his first conclusion was that the Sandstone is a peculiar forma- 

 tion of Gritstone subordinate to the Yorkshire Coal-field. Professor 

 Phillips says "the rock is quite undistingiushable from Millstone- 

 grit in hand-specimens." I think he might also have added that they 

 could not be distinguished in the quarries ; at least I could not tell 

 them from Millstone -grits. The last-named Professor, in his Geo- 

 logical Map of Yorkshire, clearly colours some Lower New Eed 

 Sandstone in the neighbourhood of Plumpton ; but he, I believe, 

 considers the Gritstones of Bramham Moor and Fountains Abbey as 

 Carboniferous rocks ; whilst the former Professor most certainly 

 claims the Bramham Moor Stone as Permian ; but whether he does 

 that of Fountains Abbey is not so clear ; but I am inclined to think he 

 does. When these Sandstones are found to be quite unconformable 

 to the overljdng Permian rocks, and conformable to the underlying 

 Carboniferous rocks upon which they repose, it appears to me that 



