BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT NEWCASTLE. 



37/ 



be, like the bones of a large skeleton, they might stand firm in their un- 

 supported strength till the fires ceased to burn, and the cup was, for the 

 last time, filled up to and beyond the brim. Some connection between 

 the Pennine fault and the Ninety Fathom dyke had often been suggested. 

 The dyke was first seen at Cullercoats, on the Northumberland coast, 

 about half a mile north from the mouth of the river Tyne, where its effect 

 was very conspicuous in throwing down the magnesian limestone, and the 

 underlying strata, from 90 to 100 fathoms. As there was not a vestige of 

 coal in the Pennine chain, its elevation and the crisis of the Pennine 

 fault must have occurred either before the deposition of the coal or after 

 the chain had been denuded of coal already deposited. But at the Tyne- 

 daie fault, coal was thrown down from a considerable height. It could 

 hardly, therefore, be doubted that coal once existed throughout the chain 

 upon the millstone grit, and was washed off. during the partial submer- 

 gence of the chain. In that case it would follow that the Tynedale fault, 

 occurring after the deposition of the magnesian limestone and before that 

 of the New Red Sandstone, was older than the Pennine fault ; and that 

 the latter fault, with all its volcanic consequences, might have occurred 

 within the same geological epochs, but after the effects produced by the 

 Tynedale fault. This denudation of coal would, of course, imply an in- 

 termediate subsidence of the mountain-limestone system, during which 

 the coal of the chain, both north and south of its depression and burial 

 along the line of the Tynedale fault, would be washed away. It did not 

 follow that this subsidence should be excessive. There appeared to be 

 direct evidence in the disturbed magnesian conglomerates near Brough, 

 that the Pennine fault, which followed the final elevation of the chain, 

 may have occurred after the dislocation of the magnesian limestone at 

 Cullercoats. The existence of the Ingleton coal, which may, from causes 

 operating on a limited tract, have escaped destruction, seemed to show 

 that the Tynedale fault must have preceded the Pennine fault ; but, 

 after all that had been said, there was abundant scope for further observa- 

 tions and reasoning on this difficult subject. 



The Cumbeeland Coalfields and New Ped Sandstone. By Mr. 

 M. Dunn. — In volume viii. of the Transactions of the Mining Institute 

 of Newcastle is published a paper which the author had read on this 

 subject. The bearing of his former paper was to show that the New Ped 

 Sandstone was traceable from St. Bees through the collieries of the whole 

 line of coast and up to the vicinity of the village of Aspatria, where some 

 new sinkings have recently been made by the representatives of the late 

 Captain Harris in the New Ped Sandstone, and short driftings have led 

 directly into the main coalfield towards Bolton and the neighbouring 

 mountain limestone. At the Ellenborough colliery the explorations have 

 reached to the town of Maryport in the ten-quarter seam at the depth 

 of 100 fathoms, and have there been suspended at troubled coal attended 

 with very great thickening of the band with downcast troubles. Very 

 much the same circumstances have attended the working of the Crosby 

 colliery at the depth of 70 fathoms ; a set of dykes and bad coal, about the 

 same course as the margin of the Ped Sandstone, terminating the profitable 

 working of the ten-quarter seam. To the northward of the above line of 

 explorations and down to the Solway, no operations in search of coal have 

 been carried on, but sundiy quarries have been worked, showing the Ped 

 Sandstone to be lying in regular strata, with a westerly dip similar to the 

 coal-measures. From the above facts he had been led to form the idea 

 that the Ped Sandstone is but the superior strata of the coalfield, and that 

 the neighbouring coal-seams will be found underneath ; and judging from 



Vol. vi. 3 c 



