2 2 baker's north YORKSHIRE. 



edge of the county the road at the bottom of the Stainmoor 

 depression is 1,450 feet above the sea-level, in beds not far 

 above the Main Limestone. On the north side of the Stain- 

 moor hollow the summits of the west and the peak of Golds- 

 borough attain the Middle Gritstone ; and the general floor of 

 the lower moorlands in the Lartington and Cotherstone tract is 

 made up of the argillaceous beds below it. And north of the 

 Lunedale fault the series is only seen in two caps over the Main 

 Limestone of the Mickle Fell ridge, one at its eastern, and the 

 other, which is 60 feet in thickness and forms the highest part 

 of the hill, at its western extremity. 



THE PERMIAN SYSTEM. 



(9) The Lower and (10) The Upper {Magnesian Limestone) 

 Series. — Within the limits of our field of study, along the whole 

 length of the line of the edge of the Millstone Grit beds, none 

 of the strata of the Coal Measures are to be seen, although they 

 make their appearance both in a northern and southern direc 

 tion soon after North Yorkshire is left behind, and both South 

 Durham and West Yorkshire yield rich and extensively worked 

 coal fields. It would from various considerations seem probable 

 that these two coal fields, though now separated by a distance 

 of 60 miles, have been originally connected together and that 

 they have formed parts of one and the same mass. Both of 

 them are formed in a basin of Millstone Grit and both are 

 covered unconformably by the beds of the Magnesian Lime- 

 stone. Coals of like quality are worked in both of them in 

 the same parts of the series and in both of them courses of 

 Ironstone are plentiful in the lower and central portions of 

 the formation. The long and varied range of deposits which 

 we have already passed under review has evidently been laid 

 down very gradually, and their deposition must have extended 

 over a very lengthened period of time. But the era which 

 immediately followed the end of that during which the beds 

 of the great Carboniferous system were laid down has on the 



