BOOK NOTICES. 



Geology of the Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction 

 Railway and Dock. — By the Rev. Edward Maule Cole, M.A., Vicar 

 of Wetwang, York. Privately printed by Peck & Son, Hull ; pp. 60, with 

 index, frontispiece, plates of sections, and geological map. 

 The construction of a new railway is a rare opportunity for geologists to increase 

 their practical knowledge by careful examination of the various sections revealed, 

 and one, too, which is ever eagerly grasped. As the Hull and Barnsley line cuts 

 across, almost at right angles, the series of beds from the Coal Measures to the 

 Post-Tertiary Boulder Clays, the engineer of the line, Mr. George Bohn, rightly 

 considered that the opportunity of a careful record was in this case too good a one 

 to be lost, and he accordingly obtained the services of the able geologist above 

 named, the President of the Geological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union. 

 To Mr. Cole this was indeed a labour of love, and the result is the present volume, 

 which is indispensable to all students of Yorkshire geology. The many readers of 

 Mr. Cole's scientific works will remember how he can clothe the driest geological 

 facts in charming language, and still retain that accuracy of detail so necessary in 

 works of this character. In this new work the author has adhered to his happy 

 style, and sections are described, theories examined, hypotheses started, and 

 suggestions offered in a manner which will not only secure the close attention of the 

 scientific reader, but also attract the notice of those whose reading is more general. 

 The work is divided into six chapters or divisions, the first giving a brief resume 

 of the geology of the Millstone Grit and Lower Coal Measures of North- West and 

 Central Yorkshire. Coming to the Middle Coal Measures, Mr. Cole commences 

 his real work, and reviews the various beds met with on the line, giving in this 

 part a good section well shown in a cutting at Upton, where the Magnesian Lime- 

 stone is seen resting unconformably on the Coal Measures. Chapter II is devoted 

 to the Permian and Triassic formations ; a plate is here given of the stratification 

 in South Kirkby Tunnel, where the Lower Magnesian Limestone has been cut 

 through. From Great to Little Heck the Bunter of the Trias shows a good section, 

 as is seen in the third plate. In Chapter III we come to the Lias; the Lower Lias 

 is not touched by the railway, which passes through a depression or synclinal taken 

 advantage of by the engineer, but the foundations of the occupation bridge to the 

 west of the signal cabin of North Cave Station were excavated in the Ammonites 

 Bucklandi beds ; a plate in this division shows the railway cutting through a series 

 of minor escarpments belonging to the Liassic and Oolitic series, till it reaches the 

 loftier escarpment of the Chalk. In Chapter IV we pass to the Oolites, in which 

 Mr. Cole is specially at home ; after mentioning an excavation in the Millepore 

 beds of the .Lower Oolites, we come to the splendid section at Drewton, of which 

 a plate is given, exposing finely the Kellaways Rock and Oxford Clay, capped by 

 recent Boulder Clay and Chalk Gravel. Chapter V is devoted to the Upper 

 Oolites and Chalk ; in this part is described the celebrated St. Austin's Stone (the 

 subject of the frontispiece), a mass of Flint breccia, left standing out by atmos- 

 pheric denudation. Chapter VI commences with a description of Drewton Tunnel, 

 a mile and a quarter long and entirely excavated in the lower beds of the White 

 Chalk ; on reaching Anlaby the chalk dips under the Hessle Boulder Clay, which 

 forms the surface of a great part of Holderness. Several good tables of borings 

 are given, so necessary to geologists, amongst which may be noted those at 

 Barmby-on-the- Marsh and in the construction of the Alexander Dock at Hull. A 

 geological sketch map of East Yorkshire in colours, with the route of the line 

 marked upon it, enables the reader at a glance to note the formations met with 

 and materially adds to the value of the volume. We certainly must congratulate 

 Mr. Cole on his valuable contribution to the geological literature of Yorkshire, and 

 upon the ability and care bestowed upon the production of the volume. Sections 

 made in the cutting of railways are often imperfectly studied and seldom accurately 

 recorded, and in this case the thanks of all geologists are due also to Mr. Bohn for his 

 forethought in thus securing a permanent record of these interesting and valuable 

 sections. x»< 



Under the title ' A Tourist's View of Ireland, by Johnnie Gray ' — one of our 

 Yorkshire Naturalists, Mr. H. Speight, of Bradford, has published a readable and 

 interesting account of a tour in that island, referring in one or two places to the 

 botany of the western districts. 

 June 1886. 



