550 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 23, 



covery of a considerable tract of Lias near Carlisle will no doubt be 

 interesting. 



For some years Mr. Richard B. Brockbank, of the firm of Messrs. 

 Carr & Co., of Carlisle, has been diligently in search of coal, and has 

 investigated the northern portion of Cumberland with considerable 

 care. His attention was chiefly directed to the district lying between 

 Curthwaite, on the Carlisle and Maryport Railway, and the Solway, 

 especially about Aikton and Oughterby, places which Prof. Sedgwick 

 had thought likely for finding coal, and where that eminent geologist 

 had been informed that a coal-seam, of 16 inches in thickness, had 

 been actually found *. 



The first place where Mr. Brockbank found the " blue metals " 

 which had always been thought to be coal-measures was in the brook 

 at Thornby. In examining them he found a shell resembling an 

 Ammonite, and some other fossils, which induced him to think that 

 the beds might prove to be Lias. On his transmitting, through Mr. 

 Brockbank, engineer, of Manchester, the specimens to me, I imme- 

 diately pronounced them to be Liassic. 



On the 13th January, 1859, being at Carlisle, Mr. R. B. Brock- 

 bank was so good as to drive me over the district. We first went to 

 Moorhouse, near which place we saw the TiU, of a reddish colour, 

 exposed 12 feet without reaching its bottom. It is full of stones, 

 mostly rounded, consisting of Criifel granite and slate and Silurian 

 rocks, but it is nevertheless used for brickmaking. West of Moor- 

 house the land is on a cold clay, with considerable beds of peat on 

 it. On passing through Oughterby, Mr. Brockbank pointed out the 

 place at Moor Dyke where a small seam of coal is reported to have 

 been wrought. We next went to Quarry-Gill to look at the Moun- 

 tain-limestone, which had been quarried many years ago, and which 

 he thought might indicate the position of some of the lower coals. 

 He had found the dark shales in Thornby Brook, and, from the 

 fossils contained in them, suspected them to be Lias ; but he never 

 imagined that Quarry-Gill stone was anything but mountain-lime- 

 stone, and he quoted Prof. Sedgwick and other geologists in support 

 of his opinion. 



On my going into the field where the old quarry had been opened, 

 I picked up a piece of limestone containing shells of GrypJima in- 

 curva, which left no doubt in my mind as to the limestone being 

 Lias. The old quarry is now filled up; but dark Lias- shales are seen 

 in situ in the ditch near the well, and in the well itself the lime- 

 stone is seen. The well derives its water from a bore-hole through 

 the Hmestone, about 6 feet in depth, as a person who had put a 

 rake-shaft down informed us; but in all probability it is much 

 deeper. The walls of the well are constructed of Lias-limestone, 

 and that rock is lying about on the surface over the field. Here- 

 with are sent specimens, collected by me, full of Gryphcea incurva, 

 G. infiata (?), G. depressa (?), an Ostrea, and other shells. 



* See Prof. Sedgwick's paper on the Basin of the Eden and the North-western 

 Coasts of Cumberland. Transact. Geol. Soc. 2nd ser. vol. iv. p. 383 &c. 



