FACTS AND INFERENCES. 287 



noticed as an example*. In many instances, through a fondness for 

 generalizing, or an attachment to theory, authors have bestowed the 

 name coal basin where it is by no means appropriate. Thus, we read 

 of "the coal basin of Newcastle", or "the coal basin of the Tyne 

 and the Wear," though the coal strata of that district are no more in 

 the form of a basin, than the metalliferous limestone on which they 

 are understood to repose, or than the magnesian limestone which 

 reposes over them : for if the coal measures lie in the bosom of the 

 metalliferous limestone, the magnesian limestone lies in the bosom 

 of the coal strata. Nay, we may say further, that the red sandstone 

 lies in the bosom of tKe magnesian limestone, and the aluminous series 

 in the bosom of the red sandstone; and that each of the remaining 

 members of our strata seems to embrace that which precedes it, 

 extending round it, and under it, in a form more or less curved. 

 Indeed, we know of no district where the strata are disposed in 

 rectilineal planes, without any degree of curvature. 



8. Many of the strata are found to wedge out, or run to a thin edge; 

 and this may have been the case with all the strata. — We have ascertain- 

 ed, that there are beds in the interior which do not make theirappearance 

 on the shore, and beds on the shore which are not found in the interior; 

 and that, in not a few instances, strata of great thickness, grow 

 thinner and thinner, till they wholly disappear. Not to speak of the 

 seams of ironstone and coal, we find great beds of shale, of crow-stone 

 and other sandstones, and even of oolite, thus wedging out; for to 

 the south of Malton and of Castle Howard, we find the whole oolite 



* Since the two preceding Parts of our Work were printed, we have seen a Paper by N. 

 J. Winch, Esq., entitled " Observations on the Eastern part of Yorkshire," published in the 

 Fifth Volume of tlie Geological Transactions. In that Paper, Mr. Winch slates, that the coal 

 formation which covers the alum shale forms a basin. Had that gentleman examined our dis- 

 trict himself, instead of attempting to describe it from scraps of information collected from others, 

 lie might have avoided that mistake, as veil as several other errors into which he has fallen. 



