PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



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a hard limestone, called the ironstone ; then follows another shale, with 

 various shells, and some small Trilobites. Shales and sandstones then 

 alternate two or three times, with sometimes a thin seam of coal, one of 

 which is the " Crow Coal," two or three inches thick ; upon these is an- 

 other thin limestone of an irregular ferruginous character, affording beau- 

 tiful variegated corals, Astraja and Cyathophyllum ; upon it follows another 

 sandstone, with clay shale, having a seam of coal about eleven inches thick. 

 The coals, with their associated deposits, are of very small extent ; the 

 widest area they afford does not exceed half a mile, and, in the line of the 

 strata, not more than four or five miles, beyond which they either have 

 never been formed, or are overlaid. With respect to the coal formation in 

 these rocks, as a general rule, wherever a clay shale is found lying on 

 a sandstone, it is possible to find in the shale a trace of coal varying from 

 a mere mark to twelve or thirteen inches. It is worthy of notice that the 

 shales resting upon limestone are invariably full of animal- and destitute of 

 vegetable-remains, while those upon sandstones are destitute of animal- 

 remains. 



We now cross a series of red-coloured limestones, formed in a great 

 measure of Encrinitic fragments. Upon the first of these rests a grey 

 sandstone, followed by limestone ; a sandstone follows, the thickest in 

 the series, and, from its general character, of deep-sea origin. The lime- 

 stone overlying it, one of the thickest and most important, is the last of its 

 race, for upon it rests the New Red Sandstone. These two may be traced 

 all through this and the sister-county ; in many places they are almost 

 the only representatives of the Lower Carboniferous era, having either 

 totally overlaid the others, or they have never been deposited. The Mor- 

 land limestone, does not, however, immediately follow the thick sandstone, 

 for between them, in the neighbourhood of Morland and King's Meaburn 

 Scar, there may be found a thin limestone and sandstone. The limestone 

 is of a deep red colour, and with the red clay shale above it, is perhaps the 

 richest and most prolific in fossil remains of any. It is certainly a shallow- 

 water deposit. Its upper beds are the site of a very luxuriant forest of 

 crinoids ; these are very numerous in the shales, and some may be found 

 with the root attached in their original positions. Associated with them 

 are quantities of the Fenestella, beautifully preserved, shells innumerable 

 on every layer, and very frequently remains of small Trilobites. Thus, 

 these animals range through the whole of this series, but are only found in 

 deposits of a coast or shallow-water origin. The sandstone above is decidedly 

 an ancient shore, or sandy beach. What the inhabitants of the land were, 

 these rocks have afforded no record ; but of the sea, the most gigantic 

 form of animal life was the Orthoceras. These are numerous in the upper 

 red limestones, varying in size from two to four and a half feet in length, 

 perhaps the most gigantic size they have ever attained, and doubtless at 

 that era they were lords of the sea. 



The lower beds of the New lied Sandstone are the next rocks upon the 

 Morland limestone. These, in the southern extremity of the basin, are 

 breccias, of great thickness, followed by true sandstone. These, according 

 to Professor Harkness, belong to the Permian ; they encroach or recede 

 from the outcrop of the Morland limestone, as the level of the country 

 has permitted, but in no ease are they overlaying it. 



Having given the characteristic features 01 each rock, in the order of its 

 deposit, the author gave an outline of the position they occupy, and of the 

 forces he conceived to have been at work. It has been said the Old Red 

 Sandstone lies unconformably upon the metamorphic slate rock \ what its 

 angle of dip might be the author could not say, but itjs probably the same 



