160 COMMITTEE'S ADDRESS. 
and placed according to the universal law, at right angles to the 
line of pressure. 
In the shales a few fossil ferns are to be met with, and stems 
of stigmaria, with rootlets, in the bottom clay. 
After a short walk across the fields, the party arrived at the 
“ Coronation Pit,” where the dyke had been cut at a considerable 
depth from the surface; large quantities of the basalt so worked, 
had been brought to bank, where it was carefully examined by 
the mineralogists who obtained specimens of felspar, and other 
crystals, usually associated with basalt. 
It was now the turn of the botanists and entomologists of the 
party, to pursue their peculiar studies, and the upper part of 
Walbottle Dene, then richly adorned with spring flowers in 
their prime, was found to be an attractive and beautiful field of 
research. Primroses, wild hyacinths, wood anemones, the tender, 
green, opening fronds of ferns, several of the stellarias, the 
little adoxa, geum rivale, and other spring flowers of common 
occurrence were gathered. 
Where the west turnpike crosses the Dene, the former became 
the line of march, the next rendezvous being Walbottle Colliery. 
On either side of the road, the ditch and ramparts of the Roman 
Wall are distinctly visible, running straight as an arrow up hill 
and down dale, and despising that bending to circumstances 
which distinguishes our modern iron roads. 
At Walbotile the plans and sections of the colliery were 
examined with much interest, and carefully and clearly explained 
by Mr. John Ramsay, to an audience whose ignorance of colliery 
terms, and technicalities, made the task a more arduous one than 
common. No such difficulties presented themselves in the next 
duty which the kind and thoughtful hospitality of Mr. Ramsay 
had prompted him to undertake, and that justice was done to 
luncheon at his residence, which has never failed after a long 
country walk, to distinguish the members of this Club. 
Fine views of the vale of the Tyne,.and the Fells which give 
it birth, were obtained from the garden, and other “‘coins of vant- 
age’ in the neighbourhood. 
-Hunger being appeased, ‘‘the Pit” was now the cry, and a 
