766 ME. E. WILSON ON" THE DTJEHAM SALT-DISTRICT. 



Messrs. Bolckow and Co., and gave a detailed section of that boring, 

 and the analysis of the salt here quoted *. The author refers " the 

 strata in which the salt occurs to the Upper New Eed Sandstone, 

 or the same as those in which the rock-salt of Cheshire occurs." 



In a paper " On the parts of England and Wales in which Coal 

 may and may not be looked for beyond the known Coalfields," read 

 before the British Association in 1866 t, Sir Roderick Murchison 

 referred to the (then) recent discovery at Middlesborough, " by the 

 spirited ironmaster Mr. Yaughan, of a body of rock-salt subordinate 

 to the Kew Red Sandstone at a depth of 1800 J: feet without reaching 

 even the surface of the Magnesian Limestone." In the Presidential 

 Address to the British Association in the year 1880, Sir Andrew C. 

 Ramsay, LL.D., F.R.S., referring to the earlier salt-explorations of 

 Messrs. Bolckow and Messrs. Bell, said (p. 11), " in the North of 

 England at and near Middlesb'rough, two deep boreholes were made 

 some years ago in the hope of reaching the coal-measures of the 

 Durham Coalfield §, One of them, at Saltholme, was sunk to a depth 

 of 1355 feet. Eirst they passed through 74 feet of superficial clay and 

 gravel, and next through about 1175 feet of red sandstones and marls 

 with beds of rock-salt and gypsum. The whole of these strata (except- 

 ing the clay and gravel) evidently belong to the Keuper marls and 

 sandstones of the upper part of our New Red Series. Beneath these 

 they passed through 67 feet of dolomitic limestone^ which in this neigh- 

 bourhood forms the upper part of the Permian series, and beneath the 

 limestone the strata consist of 27 feet of gypsum and rock-salt and 

 marls, one of the beds of rock-salt having a thickness of 14 feet. 

 This bed of Permian Salt is of some importance, since I have been 

 convinced for long that the British Permian strata were deposited, 

 not in the sea, but in salt lakes comparable in some respects with 

 the great salt lake of Etah, and in its restricted fauna to the far 

 greater salt lake of the Caspian Sea" ||. 



In the geological article by Messrs. W. T. Yeitch and G. Barrow, 

 E.G.S., appended to the ' Guide to Middlesborough and the District,' 

 for the use of Members of the British Association visiting Cleveland, 

 Sept. 8th, 1881, the authors give three detailed sections of the salt- 

 measures of the district, viz., Messrs. Bolckow, Yaughan & Co.'s 

 Middlesborough well, and Messrs. Bell Brothers' Saltholme Test- 

 boring and No. 1 well, and speak of the salt-deposits as occurring 

 in the New Red Sandstone. 



In the Sixth Report of the Committee of the British Association 

 " On the Circulation of Enderground Waters in the Permeable Eor- 

 mations of England and Wales " %, Mr. C. E. de Ranee, E.G.S., 



* Eep. Brit. Assoc. 1863, Trans, of Sections, p. 82. ' Geologist,' 1863, p. 387. 

 Appendix, infi^a, p. 782. 



t Eep. Brit. Assoc. 1867, Trans, of Sections, p. 61. 



X An error for " from 1200 to 1300 feet." 



§ This was not exactly the case ; the first boring was sunk for water, the second 

 for salt, and to test the strata below the salt-bed, rather than with the hope of 

 actually reaching coal. See Bell, loc. cit. p. 133. 



II Eep. Brit. Assoc. 1880, p. 11. The italics in this and the following quota- 

 tions are mine. 



^ Eep. Brit. Assoc. 1880, p. 101. See also Seventh Eeport of the same 

 Committee, Eep. Brit. Assoc, 1881, p. 310. 



