194 Yorkshire Oolites. 



very different nature from those of the equivalent 

 strata in the south of England, and though I have ex- 

 amined these sections from end to end, I shall quote 

 from the measured sections of Mr. Etheridge, and give 

 the latest information. 



Kesting directly on the Alum shales of the Upper 

 Lias, there are sands intermingled with bands of shale, 

 the whole being about 50 feet thick. All the fossils, 

 which are generally scarce, are of marine species, 

 and the whole of the strata are known to palaeon- 

 tologists as the zone of Ammonites Jurensis, and 

 it is generally considered to be the equivalent of 

 the Midford Sands of the South of England, or the 

 Sands of the Inferior Oolite, as named by William 

 Smith. 



Above these come strata, locally known as Dogger, 

 consisting of about 30 feet of brown sands, which are 

 sometimes ferruginous and red. They are inter stratified 

 with shaley sands, and the whole contains numbers of 

 the marine fossils of the Inferior Oolite. 



On these there lie about 200 feet of sandstone, 

 destitute as far as known of the remains of any kind of 

 life, except a few land plants. Then comes about 25 

 feet of sandy limestone, known as the Millepore Bed, 

 full of fossils common in the Inferior Oolite of the 

 south. This is succeeded by about 80 feet of shales 

 interstratified with sandstones, as yet destitute of the 

 remains of molluscs, but what is of especial interest, 

 there are at least eight distinct bands of coal, inter- 

 stratified chiefly with the shales, and several other lines 

 of carbonaceous matter more interrupted and broken. 

 What adds to the importance of this fact is, that the 

 coal-beds have not been formed of drifted vegetation, 

 for underneath each bed there occurs an underclay or 



