BEITISH 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 Xinety Fathom dyke had often been suggested. 
The dyke was first seen at Cullercoats, on the Is orthumberland coast, 
about half a mile north from the mouth of the river Tj'ne, where its efiect 
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- 
dale 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 ]Si ew Ked 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 eftects 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 T3 nedale fault, would be washed awa}' . 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 difiicult subject. 
The Cumberland Coalfields and 2<^ew Red 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 Red 
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 Red 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 Red 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 sundrv quarries have been worked, showing the Red 
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 Red Sandstone is but the superior strata of the coalfield, and that 
the neighbouring coal-seams will be foimd underneath ; and judging from 
VOL. VI. 3 c 
