200 Mr. Tate on Basaltic Rocks. 



in a similar manner to those at Kyloe. Tradition says that 

 among these crags was the hole into which the Laidley Worm 

 crept after having gorged itself with food ; the hole has been 

 destroyed by quarrying; but there still stands an isolated 

 column to which the knight, who slew the worm, fastened 

 his horse before engaging with the monster. A limestone 

 nine feet in thickness, shales, and a coal bed dip under the 

 basalt. These are among the middle beds of the Calcareous 

 group of the Mountain Limestone, and in the limestone are 

 such fossils as Productus giganteus and Griffiihides Far- 

 ncnsis. 



At Budle the basalt is nearly connected with an indurated, 

 jointed, red shale (containing Posodonia Becheri, &c), which 

 overlies a limestone ; for the basalt is in the hill a little above 

 the schist, and on the sea-shore to the east ; so that the 

 jointed and indurated condition of the schist is probably due 

 to the action of basalt. Near the mouth of the Warn, and 

 here and there along the coast southward, a thin bed of lime- 

 stone lies on the basalt ; and a peculiar section indicates 

 mechanical disturbance. 



In Section No. 2, on the east side of a fissure (f) is a mass 

 of columnar basalt, twenty feet high (5), and on the west side 

 another mass of basalt, but much lower, (b), on which lies 

 a limestone two feet in thickness. 



In joints of the limestone at Budle and Bamburgh I found 

 sulphate of barytes of a salmon colour, a mineral I have 

 not seen elsewhere in Northumberland north of the Tyne ; 

 but its presence in these two localities, very near to the 

 basalt, leads to the conclusion that its formation is due to 

 some chemical action of the basalt upon the strata. 



The basalt in this neighbourhood covers a considerable 

 area, about a mile and one-half from S.W. to N.E., with a 

 breadth near to three quarters of a mile ; and southward of 

 the Warn it rises in high cliffs in the sea-banks, and also 

 slopes away to the N.N.W. into the sea. On the shore it is 

 overlaid by a sandstone, on which rests a thin bed of lime- 

 stone ; but the sandstone appears prolonged into the mass 

 of basalt in the cliff, having basalt both above and below it ; 

 and at the southward extremity of the cliff, a sandstone is 

 seen in a similar position. Further southward the basalt is 

 covered by a thin limestone, which runs along the shore till 

 it reaches a fissure ; the continuity is slightly interrupted by 

 what seems a perpendicular basaltic dike, three feet wide, 

 which not only cuts through the limestone, but also through 



