Geology of Eglingham District. By James Tait. 221 



Breamish, and the Till : — excellent examples of which we have 

 in view in the Beanley, Harehope, and Old Bewick Hills, and, 

 away in the distance, the highest of all — Eass Castle. All these 

 hills, for the most part, are gritty sandstones. 



The great Limestones of the coast do not approach here, 

 though very good beds are found to the E. of Eass Castle at 

 Quarry -house ; and only at Tarry and Bannamoor and Curlshugh 

 to the N. are found beds of coal, the best of which are about 

 2 feet in thickness. Above one of these, the " Blackhill " seam, 

 lies a bed of Limestone, which is worked with the coal, and sent 

 to bank to be burnt for lime. When these two useful minerals 

 can only be had to a limited extent, it will be seen what a boon 

 the opening out of the new railway must have been to the com- 

 munity. One other mineral may be mentioned — Iron ; for, as 

 we shall see on our journey to-day, that it has been manu- 

 factured, so it must have been found, and where? must form 

 part of our investigations. 



We are quite out of the range of the Basaltic Whin Sill, 

 which is seen in the distance at Ratcheugh Crag, and no 

 whinstone dykes run through the district. A few outcrops of 

 the next lowest division— the " Tuediaus " — are seen here and 

 there ; a very fine section is in the Eglingham Burn, about 300 

 yards above the village, and Crawley Dene to the S.W. cuts 

 through the same beds ; also Eoddam Dene is classed by Pro- 

 fessor Lebour to belong to the same, where it abuts on the 

 rolled Cheviot porphj'-ries ; but the very western top is capped 

 by a finely laminated and ripple-marked patch of Bernieian 

 sandstone. Some outlying Silurian beds have also been found 

 in Fawdon Dene by Mr Topley. 



So much, then, for the main framework : and now we must 

 turn to the next part — the Glacial features— or that agency 

 which, in a great measure, has operated to mould the earth's 

 surface as we now find it. Till of late years, that amount of 

 attention which has been bestowed on other problems of the 

 science was never given to this ; but latterly it has been made 

 a special branch of study by some of the ablest minds ; and 

 accordingly, when last year the British Association met at 

 Newcastle, the greatest lion of the assembly was Dr Nansen, 

 who had devoted his attention to the subject among the Ice- 

 fields ; for what Greenland now is, the British Islands, and 

 indeed the continent of Europe, were once. 



