NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF CLEVELAND. 



85 



ago, was there presented, before the mountains he now sees before 

 him were brought forth, or ever the hills around him formed ! 



To sink through part of these shales and all the intervening strata 

 to the coal formation below has been, as we need hardly wonder at, 

 long a favourite project with the landed proprietors upon whose 

 estates they crop out to the surface ; but, whether a consummation so 

 devoutly to be wished, is ever likely to be realised, is a question which 

 may well be doubted. If we consider the inclination of the seams at 

 the southern extremity of the Durham coal-fields, (which is about 

 twenty miles north of the district of which we speak, and the possi- 

 bility of the attempt being made at a point where the coal attains a 

 low depth in the fault (as we know the Lias is seldom conformable to 

 the carboniferous series) : and, moreover, if we think of the doubt 

 which may reasonably be entertained as to whether the coal-measures 

 do actually underlie the Lias of North Yorkshire or not, and the great 

 depth to which must in any case be sunk before the question can be 

 pronounced to be finally solved, I cannot certainly hold out any hopes 

 that for many years to come Cleveland will be reckoned amongst the 

 coal districts, or that ever a trial will be made with a result to satisfy 

 all, who are either scientifically or pecuniarily interested in the matter. 

 Although the search for coal has so often proved unfruitful, yet the 

 dim prospect of such a rich mine of wealth does so easily beguile 

 the landed squire, that it seems an idea which the personal experience 

 of an attempt to realize this fond hope alone can banish from his mind. 

 And if we believe Sir Roderick Murchison,* amid all their failures 

 we never meet with an individual who is really disheartened ; but a 

 frequent exclamation is, " Oh, if our squires were only men of spirit, 

 we should have as fine coal as any in the world!" An attempt was 

 recently made on the estate of Visount Falkland, of which I cannot 

 refrain from speaking in anything but terms of commendation — since 

 the abandonment at a depth at which few would look for any result 

 more than has been arrived at, has done nothing towards setting the 

 question at rest. Its continuance, if persisted in, should be a matter 

 for public, rather than private expenditure. As regards the gypseous 

 marls of which we were speaking above, there seems nothing of 

 sufficient interest in them to detain us longer in our examination. 



b, The Lower Lias shales obtain over most of the plain or lowlands 

 of Cleveland, and are seen to a considerable height in most of the 

 escarpments of the long range of hills. These beds, which we may 

 safely estimate at five hundred feet in thickness, consist for the most 

 part of a dark homogeneous indurated clay or shale, sub-calcareous 

 bands and layers of ironstone nodules, which are too much incon- 

 siderable to be worked for profit, although when found on the shore, 

 loose from and washed out of the surrounding shale, they have been 

 shipped in small quantities for the furnaces on the Tyne. An excellent 

 natural section of the upper part of the Lower Lias is visible on the 

 Cleveland coast at Huntcliffe, and inland in the steep ravines on the 



* Silurian system, part i., p. 328. 



