238 
At Seaton Sluice is a thick mass of sandstone, which may 
probably be the same bed as that just described, though I 
am not quite certain. The lower part is z. from N 10° W., 
the central — z. from S. 6° E., the top z. from N. 86° E., 
and about half a mile further North the upper part is z. 
from S. 80° E. This, then, shews that there was a total 
change in the direction of the current during the deposition 
of the central part, which produced a more tranquil deposit, 
probably owing to interference ; and then, at the top, there 
was a bed drifted from an intermediate quarter, very uniform 
for some distance. If this bed be the same as the one seen 
about a mile South, as before mentioned, it would appear 
that the upper and lower portions, in both, indicate a close 
agreement in the directions of the currents ; but that in 
place of its gradually changing, an interference with some 
other current characterised the central portion of the bed 
at Seaton Sluice. 
It would be tedious to refer to all the particular cases 
which have led me to form the following conclusions, but 
they may all be derived from an examination of the sections 
I have described, and some others of a similar nature. We 
have, in the coal strata of the coast-section, between Tyne- 
mouth and Seaton Sluice, beds drifted from very various 
quarters, but yet they may all be divided into two leading 
groups, viz,, those which have come from some point between 
North-East, passing through North and West to South- 
West, and those from between South and East, there being 
none from any point between South and South-East, or East 
and North-East. These, in the sections, are not grouped 
with any definite regularity, first one and then another set 
predominating, with or without any intervening period of 
tranquillity, during which soft level-bedded strata could be 
accumulated. It may, therefore, perhaps, be concluded, on 
the whole, that this line of section cuts across a tract where 
