78 
My remarks will apply more particularly to the West York- 
shire Coal Field, though I think, with slight variations, they 
are applicable to all ; the prevailing opinion being that all 
coal has been changed by heat into the many varieties of 
stone coal, of Yorkshire ; cannel coal, of Lancashire ; culm, of 
Wales ; or anthracite, of mineralogists. The major part of 
Yorkshire coal is the slate coal of mineralogists. Having on 
a former occasion advanced the opinion that the Yorkshire 
Freestone is an estuary deposit, it being but a continuous 
member of the coal series, further research confirms that 
opinion, and goes to convince me that the Yorkshire Coal 
Field and its intermediate strata is one large estuary deposit ; 
one of the strongest evidences being the general thinning of 
the respective strata to the east, which would bear out the idea 
that some large sluggish river or rivers had quietly deposited 
the contents of their turbid waters from the North-west by 
West. I know of no supposition but that of an estuary deposit, 
to account for the basin or spoon shape of coal formations, 
except the extravagant one of satellites, that have fallen to our 
earth as their primary. The loose floated materials becoming 
more solid would have a tendency to settle in the middle (as 
there would be less support in the centre) as we have often 
seen the basset edge left behind at a greater angle, the 
change must be allowed to be great and complete between the 
finishing deposition of the sandstone grit and the commence- 
ment of the coal series. From whatever quarter the debris 
that forms the carboniferous sandstone of this district came, 
I think it must have been worn on some beach, by 
powerful drifts, rapid currents, glacial deposits, or the wild 
dash of some primeval ocean's successive storms, and 
perhaps the tidal billows of a comparatively inland sea. 
To me there seems no need to call in any great astronomical 
change to bring about a more settled state of things. The 
currents of this inland sea or estuary, by which the 
