xvi PERMIAN FOSSILS. 



at Eoker Cliff, or ia tlie rock of "marbles" at Building Hill. In those beds wliicli are almost entirely- 

 composed of crystalline carbonate of lime, as in tin; iiathing Cove at Byers's Quarrj'', and several otlier 

 localities, it may be supposed, that the volatilising agent has acted on the entire mass of the roclc. 



I have been led into the foregoing observations, not so much from a desire to describe certain phenomena, 

 as to give them a Palseontological bearing, which, to a certain extent, they appear to possess ; because, 

 from the published observations of Freiesleben' and Geinitz, it is suspected, that rocks displaying precisely 

 the same cliaracters, having the same relative position, and containing the same fossils, are developed in 

 several localities in the Permian region of Thuringia. Do the rocks alluded to contain the fossils Schizodv.s 

 Schlothevni, Mytilus septifer, &c., to the exclusion of Palliobranchiate shells, and corals, as their equivalents 

 in Durham ? 



The Permian members of the North of England do not complete the series ;2 as in 

 the South of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, other rocks, 

 occasionally consisting of variously coloured marls, with and without gypsum, exist, 

 which are supposed to be more recent than the former, and which become obscured 

 by seemingly being intermixed with, or apparently passing into, the Sandstones, and 

 Saliferous marls of the overlying Triassic system. As much obscurity hangs over the 

 Permian rocks of the Midland districts, it will be the safest plan to make no other than 

 a mere incidental mention of them ; and the same may be advantageously adopted with 

 regard to the Derbyshire Magnesian Limestone cowiiimm^ Productus horridus, the Bristol 

 Magnesian Conglomerate, and the so-called Permian rocks in South Wales, and some 

 other deposits, supposed to be of the same age, in the neighbourhood of Dungannon 

 and Belfast, Ireland. Certain members of the Permian system undoubtedly occur in 

 Cumberland.^ 



in the Tyrolian Dolomites, the reader is referred to the hypothesis of Von Buch, and to some others lately 

 proposed by liaidinger. Professor Pavre, and Von Morlot, translations of which are given in the ' New 

 Edinburgh Philosophical Journar for January and July, 1849. 



1 Geognostischcr Beitrag zur Kenntniss des Kupfer-schiefergebirges, vol. iv. 



2 I am inclined to think, that the remains of a higher member of the Permian system occur in the 

 County of Durham ; as during the excavation of the Newcastle and Sunderland railway, at a place between 

 Fulwell toll-gate, and Monkwearmouth, the workmen exposed several large natural galleries passing through 

 beds of marly limestone belonging to member a, and filled with a very fine pijDC clay of various colours, as 

 red, blue, yellow, and green. It occurs to me, that Professor Phillips (? Philosophical Magazine, 1828) has 

 described something of the kind in the limestone quarries at Brotherton. I was prevented making any 

 proper observations on these galleries in consequence of the workmen sodding the sides of the excavation 

 shortly after it was made. 



3 The account herein given of the Permian members of the North of England has been derived from my 

 own observations made some years since, assisted by Professor Sedgwick's Memoir, and another valuable 

 paper, entitled ' Notes on the New Red Sandstone of the County of Durham below the Magnesian Limestone,' 

 by Mr. William Hutton, and inserted mj the ' Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, 

 Durbam, and Newcastle-on-Tyne,' vol. i, pp. 66-74. In some respects I differ from Professor Sedgwick, 

 particularly as regards the origin of the crystalline structures, and the relative position of some of the beds ; 

 for example, those between Marsden and North Point on the coast of Durham, and the Fish bed in Palliori 

 Quarry. My removal to Galway has prevented the latter point being further examined into, which was always 

 my intention previously to finishing the present work : I cannot, therefore, maintain my views so strongly 

 as could be desired : perhaps, were I going over the ground again, I might be led to modify them to a 

 certain extent. 



