4 1 4 Mr. Hutton's Notes on the New Red Sandstone of 



interesting speculation. As it has now been ascertained that 

 we have below the magnesian limestone a formation of new 

 red sandstone, may we not be allowed to conjecture that a 

 bed of rock salt is existing in it somewhere, as this stratum is 

 well known to be the great depository of that substance all 

 over the world? This idea is rendered more probable by 

 the situation of the places where salt springs occur, none of 

 which are at a great distance from the outcrop of this stra- 

 tum. Butterby, near Croxdale, is about two miles from it; 

 Lumley is rather less than two miles; Old Walker Colliery is 

 furthest from the line, being about three miles and a half; 

 and Jarrow is the nearest, being little more than a mile and 

 a half*. 



The great scarcity of organic remains in the lower beds of 

 the magnesian limestone is rather singular. In the foregoing 

 notice, four different localities have been mentioned, where 

 fish have occurred, all in the slaty beds of the limestone, a 

 few feet above the yellow sand. Organic remains are at all 

 times of great use to the geologist and observer of nature ; 

 they are, as it were, nature's own medals of the wonderful 

 changes that have taken place upon the surface of the globe 

 before it was brought to its present state ; and the great im- 

 portance of these fish is, the light they may throw upon the 

 nature of the changes that have taken place at the time they 

 were buried. That the catastrophe was sudden, the forms 

 in which they occur, and their perfect preservation, sufficiently 

 testify ; indeed, it is a generally received opinion, that where 

 the remains of soft-bodied animals occur, with their outward 

 form perfectly preserved, and associated in families, they have 

 been suddenly overwhelmed, and entangled in the substance 

 now forming their stony matrix. It is a singular circum- 

 stance attending these fish, and one in which they agree with 

 those that have been found in different situations upon the 

 continent, that many of them are contorted; not that sort of 

 twisting which might be produced by any movement in the 

 mass, and subsequent to the time they were enveloped, but 

 the graceful contortions of the living animal in a state of pain, 

 as if struggling against its fate. 



Postscript to Mr. Hutton , s Notes on the New Red Sandstone, 

 of the County of Durham, below the Magnesian Limestone\. 



During the progress of the foregoing notes through the 

 press, we were induced to examine the effects upon the 



* Besides the places above enumerated, brine springs are common in 

 the collieries of Hebburn, Wallsend, and Percy Main, 

 f Read May 18th, 1830. 



strata 



