370 MR. E. W. BINNEY ON CARBONIFEROUS, PERMIAN, AND 



of the upper coal-measures, resting on the mountain- 

 limestone series without the intervention of the middle coal- 

 measures, which it is possible may be the case if one por- 

 tion of the coal-measures is sometimes unconformable to 

 the other, as has been recently shown to occur in the South 

 Staffordshire coal-field by Mr. Scott. 



Mary port and St. Bees Section, 



From the neighbourhood described in the last section, by 

 way of Shawk, Howrigg, Westward Chapel, West Newton, 

 Allonby, to Maryport, the upper sandstone of the Permian 

 ranges and bounds the northern part of the coal-field from 

 Aspatria to Maryport. At the latter place, on the beach 

 to the north of the town, is Bank End Quarry, a red- 

 sandstone, fine-grained, laminated, and ripple-marked, ex- 

 actly resembling the Shawk, Howrigg, Westward, and St. 

 Bees sandstones, and in no way to be distinguished from 

 them. It dips to the north-east at an angle of 17°, and 

 by the practical coal-masters of the district this sandstone 

 is considered to lie in a great downthrow of the coal- 

 measures, and coal has never yet been reached under it. 

 To the east, about a mile on the railway to Aspatria, at 

 Birkby Mill, a good section of the mountain-limestone 

 series of coal-measures, with a coal of 8 inches, having a 

 Gannister floor, is seen. The strata dip to the south-west 

 at 12°, and underlie the Maryport coal-field"^. 



In the neighbourhood of Maryport^ Mr. Wallace, an ex- 

 tensive coal-proprietor there, informed me that the red 

 sandstone of Whitehaven had been sunk through, and coals 

 worked under it. This rock, however, was not seen by me 



* Two other patches of carboniferous limestone, the one at Distington, 

 adjoining the Harrington coal-field, and the other at Hensingham, adjoining 

 that of Whitehaven. The close proximity of the carboniferous limestone 

 to this part of the Cumbei'land coal-field appears to show that the latter 

 belongs to the middle coal-measures, and the millstone-grit series is there 

 of no great thickness. 



