PARSONS : TRIAS OF THE VALE OE YORK. 159 
and Cawood. Where it approaches the surface, the red 
sandstone is almost always covered up with a gravel con- 
sisting of waterworn boulders of carboniferous sandstone 
and millstone grit, with intercalated layers of red sand, 
composed chiefly of its own debris rearranged, which some- 
times so closely resemble the original rock in situ as to be 
liable to be mistaken for it, as in the section at Balby, 
near Doncaster. The usual character of the Bunter in all 
these places is a loose red sand, or friable, semi- coherent 
red sandstone, always strongly current bedded, often mica- 
ceous, with clayey bands, and with occasional partings or 
pockets of red, green, or yellow ochrey marl ; occasionally, 
however, it loses its red colour and becomes whitish or cream- 
coloured. It contains no fossils. In the maps of the Greological 
Survey, it is divided into two beds, "fl, lower red and 
mottled sandstone," and " f2, pebble beds or conglomerate/ ' 
I presume to correspond with the divisions in other parts of 
the country, but I can see no difference whatever in litho- 
logical characters between the two, and in the absence of 
fossils it is not easy to see how they can be distinguished. 
I have never in this neighbourhood seen the Bunter assume 
the form of a conglomerate, as it does in other districts, e.g., 
at Nottingham. It is, however, impossible to suppose that 
the Geological Survey can have mistaken the drift gravels 
mingled with the rearranged materials of the red sandstone, 
as previously alluded to, for a conglomerate of Triassic 
age. 
I know no place where the relation of the Trias to the 
Permian can be seen. In most places the alluvial strata 
overlap the edge of the magnesian limestone. At Balby, near 
Doncaster, and about Tickhill, the red sandstone is superficial, 
where it rests upon the limestone ; but I know of no section 
where the junction is exposed. It would be interesting to 
ascertain the relation of these beds to each other. As we all 
