290 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



■with our coal measures. They bear a strong resemblance, though 

 on a smaller scale, to the coal strata of the Tyne and the Wear ; 

 but to such as plead for a regular succession in the strata, they must 

 appear quite out of place; nothing of the kind being found elsewhere 

 above the lias or aluminous beds ; unless the bituminous shale called 

 Kimeridge coal be deemed an approximation to our coal strata. On 

 the other hand, we find nothing here corresponding with \he green sand 

 formation of the southern counties. Some have fancied, that they dis- 

 covered it in the Filey rocks, where several of the petrifactions have a 

 greenish hue: but there it would be out of place, these rocks being 

 inferior to the oolite. The difficulty of establishing any settled order, 

 or complete series, appears very striking, on a comparison of our strata 

 with those of Lincolnshire. In that county, red chalk succeeds the 

 white chalk, as at Speeton; but among the beds beneath it, we look 

 in vain for any correspondence with our rocks : the strata are so 

 changed, that we can scarcely identify one member of the series. 

 The red chalk is neither followed by green sand, nor by shale; 

 but by a considerable bed of coarse brown sand ; under which is a 

 bed of calcareous clay, twelve or fourteen yards thick, containing 

 oolite, partly in seams, and partly in masses or nodules. Into this 

 small compass are the vast strata of our oolite hills here reduced. 

 Beneath this, occur sandstone strata of a greater thickness, containing 

 marine shells; and these are succeeded by a series of beds, bear- 

 ing some analogy to our aluminous strata; consisting of several 

 varieties of shale, some of them highly bituminous, parted by hard 

 seams of different descriptions, among which are a few bands ot iron- 

 stone; the whole shewing a mixture of pyrites, and of calcareous 

 matter. This series has been penetrated to the depth of an hundred 

 yards.* It is difficult to say, whether it corresponds with our second 

 shale, or with our aluminous strata. 



* Geological Transactions, IIL p, 394, &c. 



