Miss E. Hodgson — On the Water Blain Iron-ore. 118 



ever lucid a,n(l exact such dosoriptions may bo. Tho idea throughout 

 this pa2)cr has boon to place tho Ploistocono doj)osit8 of Shropshiro, 

 especially those underlying tho Middle IJrift, to which Pi-(jtbssor 

 Ilarkness has satisfactorily assigned its true position, on horizons 

 corresponding to some of the bods on the oastoi'n coast; but, a ware of 

 tho very unsatisfactory nature of the evidence afforded by the few 

 species of shells found in our lower clays and gravels, I have re- 

 frained from applying to thom any of tho terms by which Messrs. 

 Harmer and Searlos Wood haVo designated their lower glacial 

 deposits, which might prove to be entire misnomers. I should be 

 most grateful for lists of species found in glacial deposits in any 

 locality, and would gladly exchange specimens from our middle 

 drifts for shells from those beds. Collecting these specimens, and 

 making lists of them, is a work peculiarly suited to lady geologists, 

 on account of the small amount of manual labour involved, and the 

 quickness of eye and delicacy of touch demanded. 

 Eyton, near Wellington, Salop, 1869. 



IV. — On the Situation of the Ikon-ore Fossils in the Watee 



Blain Mines, South Cumberland. 



By Miss E. Hodgson. 



AT a meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Man- 

 chester, December, 1867, a paper was read by Mr. E. W. 

 Binney, " On the Age of the Hgematite Iron Deposits of Furness," 

 when he exhibited and described some iron-ore fossils brought by 

 me from the Water Blain mines, west of the Duddon. 



Without pretending to the knowledge of Fossil Botany that 

 enabled Mr. Binney to refer these, without hesitation, to Lepidoden- 

 dron and Stigmaria, I would, on introducing the subject of their 

 situation, or mode of occurrence, say that the frequent careful inves- 

 tigations made, on every opportunity afforded me by visiting in the 

 neighbourhood, together with the daily study for a time of a good 

 selection of specimens, have tended to confirm a belief in their vege- 

 table origin, and to train the eye, as it were, into a recognition of 

 ligniform structure, which, on account of their highly mineralized 

 state, is liable (except by those well practised in the science) to be 

 either overlooked or misinterpreted. 



The excavations for iron ore at Water Blain are on the band 

 of Coniston Limestone to the east of Millom Park. The geology 

 of the tract is noticed by Professor Sedgwick. After describing a 

 series of faults which dislocated the entire region — " tore the whole 

 system of Millom Park bodily from the other rocks of the same age, 

 and carried them full two miles to the south-east of their original 

 strike" (the succeeding Coniston Limestone group likewise), he 

 says : — " From the marshes south-east of Wander-hilP to the pastures 

 south-west of Beck Farm, a distance of full two miles, the Coniston 

 Limestone group is magnificently developed." 



1 Wander-hill, of tlie old Cumberland Maps — TJnder-liill of the Ordnance Survey. 



VOL, VII. — NO. LXIX. 8 



