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



lower division of the New Red Sandstone (Rothtodt- 

 liegende) and to the coal-measures.^^ 



The passage of the Whitehaven sandstone into overlying 

 strata cannot be seen, as it appears to have been much 

 denuded prior to the deposition of the conglomerate on its 

 eroded surface. At Astley and Bedford, as well as at 

 Moira, we find no shaly beds above this sandstone ; so, if 

 the Knotty Holm sandstone should be proved to be of the 

 same age as those strata, the beds lying between it and 

 Canobie Bridge are deposits which have not yet been seen 

 in any other section in Great Britain. 



As previously stated in this communication, when the 

 Whitehaven sandstone is present, a profitable coal-field 

 is generally found near it. Now, in the Permian sec- 

 tions at Westhouse, as well as those of Kirkby Stephen, 

 Belah, Brough, Hilton, and numerous ones about Dum- 

 fries and near Mofiat in Scotland, the breccias or conglo- 

 merate-beds and the lower soft red sandstone are well 

 exposed, but we see no trace of the Whitehaven sandstone 

 under those beds ; so, on the whole, that rock appears to 

 be more nearly connected with the carboniferous than the 

 Permian in these districts away from profitable coal-fields. 

 The plants are generally in a fragmentary condition, and 

 present the appearance of having been drifted; so it is 

 possible they may have grown during the carboniferous 

 epoch, and been drifted into the troubled waters in which 

 the sandstone was formed. When, however, we observe 

 it in Lancashire and Leicestershire, it is quite uncon- 

 formable to the underlying coal-measures, and appears 

 to have resulted from the movements of the earth^s crust 

 which followed on the elevation of the coal-measures, as 

 supposed by Professor Sedgwick in the quotation previ- 

 ously given. 



The Canobie section is the most complete series of Per- 

 mian strata that has come under my notice in the north- 



