228 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE aEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 3, 



I. Intsodtjction. 



That the geology of Lincolnshire has been generally neglected is per- 

 haps easily accounted for when we consider the difficulties of observa- 

 tion in this district, arising from the absence of sea-chffs, the paucity 

 of good inland sections, either natural or artificial, and the enormous 

 development of the superficial deposits. This neglect, however, is 

 much to be regretted, as a careful study of the strata of this county, 

 besides revealing many phenomena of great intrinsic interest, is cal- 

 culated to aiford much assistance in working out the mutual rela- 

 tions of the remarkably difi'erent sections of Yorkshire and the 

 south of England. It is in the hope of contributing some materials 

 towards the solution of this important geological problem that the 

 present paper has been prepared. 



The only previous notices of the district described in this essay, 

 which I have been able to discover, are as follows : — 



A paper* written by Mr. Bogg, in the year 1816, at the suggestion 

 of Dr. Buckland, gives a tolerably correct account of the succession 

 of beds lying to the west of Louth. Unfortunately, however, the 

 author, relying on mineralogical characters only, was betrayed into 

 the mistake of supposing the highly bituminous, slaty, and shaly 

 beds of the Bain valley to be part of the Coal-measures, and, like 

 many others before and since his time, spent considerable sums in 

 boring for beds of coal in Lincolnshire. 



• In 1820 the district was examined by Professor Phillips f, who 

 was then assisting William Smith to complete the Greological Map of 

 England ; and a few passing allusions to it occur in the ' Geology of 

 Yorkshire' (1829)+. 



In 1837 Messrs. "W. H. Dikes and J. E. Lee published a short but 

 very accurate account of the Geology of Nettleton Ilill§. In this 

 paper some of the extremely interesting features in the physical 

 geology of this district are clearly described, and lists of the fossils 

 from each of the beds are given. Mr. Lee also constructed a very 

 excellent model of the country round the hill (including a space 4 

 miles in length by 3 in width), founded on a great number of baro- 

 metrical observations made by himself [|. 



Lastly, the second edition of Phillips's Manual of Geology (1855) 

 contains a short resume of all that was then known on the subject^. 



The very few statements, referring to this district, which are scat- 

 tered through various other geological papers are vague, and often, 

 contradictory, from the want of recognition of an important fact (to 

 cies, oblige me to conclude that it was coeval with the Mammoth 



* " Outlines of the Geology of the Lincolnshire Wolds," Trans. Geol, Soc. 

 1st series, vol. iii. p. 392. 



t Memoirs of William Smith. \ Pages 44 &c. 



§ Mag. Nat. Hist. 2nd ser. vol. i. (1837) p. 561. I am indebted to Prof. 

 Phillips for calling my attention to this very valuable paper, which I had unfor- 

 tunately overlooked. 



II This model is in the Museum of the Literary and Philosophical Society of 

 Hull. 



\ Vide op. cit. p. 352. 



