108 
DAVIS : EXPOSED SECTIONS. 
but at the places last named the limestone lies above millstone 
grit rocks. It frequently happens that the sandstone or shale 
beneath the limestone is stained a reddish or purple colour, and 
the rocks so stained were considered from this circumstance to 
have been new red sandstone, the equivalents of the German 
rothe-todte-liegende. In the volume of '* Proceedings " of this 
Society issued for 1877, I contributed a paper on "The uncon- 
formability of the Permian Limestone to the Red Rocks below 
them," in which a somewhat detailed account is given of the 
occurrences, of such sections and circumstances attending their 
occurrence, along the line of the Permian escarpment, reaching in 
an almost north and south direction across the length of the 
county. In the present paper I propose to gi\^e a description of 
the sections exposed during the formation of the railway cutting, 
with a sufficiently detailed account of the immediatel}^ surround- 
ing district, to make them intelligible. 
The coal measures in the immediate vicinity consist of the 
upper measures exposed in the West Riding, and include a series 
of sandstones and shales, with beds of coal not at present worked 
in the district, though they are at short distances where railway 
accomodation has been accessible. The surface is characterized 
by gentle undulations, caused by the alternation of sandstones 
and shales dipping in the main eastwards with a north and south 
outcrop towards the west. The sandstones are not generally suffic- 
iently thick and prominent to form escarpments such as character- 
ise those of the lower measures westwards, but having resisted 
denuding agencies to a greater extent than the shales, remain to 
form the higher ground, whilst the hollows indicate the localities 
where the shale comes to the surface. The uppermost bed of 
sandstone exposed is the Houghton Common or Pontefract rock. 
It is the sandstone on which the Castle at Pontefract is built, and 
it extends round three sides of the hill, a fault running from 
Tanshelf roughly in a line with Causeway Lane to the south-west, 
throwing it out in that direction. South of Pontefract there are a 
