Mr. Tate on Basaltic Rocks, 199 



is columnar, and rises fifty feet above a steep talus of fallen 

 rock, and rests on a thick sandstone, which crops out beneath 

 it at Collier Heugh Crag ; and it is overlaid by a metamor- 

 phosed shale, which is seen on the slope of the hill dipping 

 away rapidly with the basalt to the north-east. The basalt 

 here is intruded among the lower beds of the Calcareous 

 division of the mountain limestone.* A fault running from 

 N.E. to S.W., affecting both the basalt and the stratified rocks, 

 breaks the continuity of the range ; but the basalt re-appears 

 at the distance of a quarter-of-a-mile to the south-west, and 

 hence extends south-eastward to Belford, a distance of four 

 miles in craggy hills, usually about 300 feet above the sea- 

 level. 



At Middleton, one mile north of Belford, on the great north 

 road, there are sections of some interest. The cliff face of the 

 basalt, where it bassets out on the south-west, is about 50 ft. 

 in height, but here, on the slope of the hill, it is only 15 ft. 

 in thickness. On the west side of the road it lies directly 

 over an undulating and fossiliferous limestone, ten feet thick, 

 dipping eastward ; and on the east side of the road it is 

 covered by sandstone beds, 20 feet in thickness ; but it is 

 specially to be noticed that, the underlying limestone is un- 

 altered, while the overlying sandstone is highly metamor- 

 phosed at or near the points of juncture. In the Section, 

 No. 1, I. is limestone, b. is basalt, and s. sandstone. 



The course of the basalt is changed, at the top of the hill 

 near Belford Hall, where it bends north eastward to Easing- 

 ton, and thence northward to Easington Grange, whence it 

 curves away towards Warn and Spindleston, and by Budle 

 to the sea-coast. At Crag Mill, near Easington, it rises in 

 great rude columns in an isolated hill, to the height of eighty 

 feet. The Spindlestone Crags have their cliff face to the 

 south, and rise above a steep talus to the height of fifty feet, 



* The Carboniferous System of Northumberland I have arranged in the 

 following formations in descending order (History of Alnwick, Vol. II., p. 

 442) . — 



Feet. 



1. Coal Measures 2000 



2. Millstone Grit 500 



3. Mountain Limestone, in two divisions — 



1. Calcareous Group 1700 \ 0Rnn 



2. Carbonaceous Group 900 J Z0W 



4. Tuedian Formation, about 1000 



5. Upper Old Red Sandstone Conglomerate, above 500 



6600 



