TATE ON THE GEOLOGY OF BEADNELL. 
69 
Beadnell. Some seem to be the burrows or casts of annelids, passing 
either perpendicularly or obliquely through several layers of rock, the 
upper surface of the layers being pitted aud the under projecting. 
These casts or burrows are about two lines in diameter, and are so 
crowded together in some rocks botli at Beadnell and Kirkwhelpington, 
as to give the stone a pock-marked appearance. Meandering furrows 
about one line in width, with a ridge in the centre, are probably the 
trails of an annelid : they occur also at Howick, North Sunderland, 
and Haltwhistle. It has been sussested that these were tracks made 
by small crustaceans, but the absence of all remains of the hard shell 
renders this opinion doubtful, and more extended observations on 
these boi'ings aud trails, and on the other markings associated with 
them, are required before the true characters can be distinctly 
determined. 
As confirmatory of the marine -conditions of the rocks in which the 
ripple-marks and annelids are found, I may add, that the flaggy 
sandstone containing annelids at Howick has in some of the layers 
Bellei-opJion, Euomphalus, Murchisonia, and Pleurotomaria, shells un- 
doubtedly of marine origin. 
The group of facts now noticed gives us a partial glimpse into a far 
distant era. The Beadnell flaggy beds expose to our view an ancient 
coast-line : we hear the waves breaking on the shore ; we perceive 
currents rolling along masses of sand ; the tide recedes, and ripple- 
marks, long ridges and furrows, sharp and distinct, appear ; there, 
too, are seen worms, some of large size, crawling over the surface or 
burrowing in the sand. Marks left by the sea are often fugitive, — 
the impressions made by one tide are obliterated by another ; but 
here they are preserved ; the sand and mud are hardened, it may be, 
by a wai'm sun breaking forth and baking the surface before the 
return of the tide ; other deposits have covered over the markings, 
and buried up and preserved the organic forms ; and now, when 
these rocks are laid bare and examined, they reveal to us that the 
same physical laws operated during the Carboniferous Era as at the 
present time, and that, though the aspects of vegetation were wonder- 
fully different, and organic life specifically distinct, yet the animals of 
the period were formed according to the same types, and were subject 
to like conditions as those now existing. 
