68 Mr. Hvtton's Notes on the New Red Sandstone, 8^c. 



may be traced all round this haven, and extending to a point a httle 

 short of the Two Gun Battery, where they are cut out by the rising of 

 the beds of the Coal formation. 



At the South point of Cullercoats Haven, the great, or 90-fathom 

 Dyke, as it is called, again bi'ings down the Magnesian Limestone and 

 the yellow Sand. The Dyke may be seen in the cliif, near the South 

 point of the Haven, where a Coal Sandstone, and a bed of Shale form its 

 high, or southern cheek, and the yellow Sand (here a soft Sandstone) 

 the northern. The Dyke hades, or underlies about 38° to the north, 

 and its direction is N. 87° W. Its course towards the sea may be 

 traced without difBculty, at low water, for a considerable distance 

 eastward, the well-known Sandstone rock, called the " Beards Back," 

 forming its southern side, and the yellow Sand having many thin beds 

 of Magnesian Limestone alternating with it, the northern. These al- 

 ternating beds of Limestone and Sand show marks of considerable me-' 

 chanical force, being bent and contorted near the edge of the Dyke. 

 Within the bay a bed of Shale is exposed to view, which here forms the 

 southern cheek of the Dyke, in consequence of the action of the sea 

 having removed the whole of the yellow Sand, except at the south-east- 

 ern point, where the curved beds of Limestone may be again seen alter- 

 nating with the Sand, as well as in the cliff below the Fishermen's Bea- 

 con.* 



From the appearances at this point it cannot be doubted that 

 the Dyke has thrown down the Magnesian Limestone, as Professor 

 Sedgwick observes, and it also follows, as a matter of course, that the 

 Limestone at Whitley Quarry, upon the course of the Dyke, is similarly 

 affected. A close examination of the quarry, last autumn, convinced me 

 that such was the fact ; the operations of the quarrymen had removed, in 

 one spot, the whole of the Limestone, and laid bare, for a considerable dis- 

 tance, the southern cheek of the Dyke, which was here, as in the Haven 



* In Professor Sedgwick's Section ( Geol. Trans. 2d Series, vol. iii. pi. v. fig. 2,) the 

 yellow Sand, thrown down by the Dyke, is coloured as Magnesian Limestone, which is a 

 mistake, the Limestone existing only in thin beds, subordinate to the Sand, which is here 

 of great thickness. 



