CAETER: MINERAL WELLS AT HARROGATE. 317 
boniferous rocks below the Permian and Trias in this part of the 
country." To this conclusion my speculations had led me some years 
ago ; and arguing from somewhat different premises, I ventured to 
suggest that along a line sufficiently eastward from the westerly mar- 
gin of the Permian stratification, the coal strata might be yet intact, 
although now overlaid, and perhaps buried at an unapproachable depth 
by the later and unconformable deposits of the Permian and Trias 
system's. This huge upheaving force is further apparent in the grad- 
ual exposure of the lowest rocks of the Millstone Grit and Yoredale 
series, and the vast extent to which they have been wasted by the 
forces of denudation along the line of axial elevation, and noting fur- 
ther, the remarkable coincidence of the Magnesian Limestone deposited 
as we find it upon the 'Yoredale shales on the Bilton side of Harrogate, 
we are led by such combination of physical testimony, to sympathise 
to some extent with the idea suggested by our local and much valu- 
ed and esteemed authority, Mr. Grainge, that the traces of an agency 
akin to volcanic force must have been employed in bringing out the 
striking and confessedly unique features which Harrogate presents. 
Hastenhig to the conclusion of my remarks, I would add a word or 
two OD the particular beds which characterise the basin of Low Har- 
rogate, and are confessedly identified with the origin and sources of 
our Mineral Springs. These beds, as Mr. Strangways has pointed 
out in his very valuable memoir, consist of alternating shales and 
sandstones — and amongst the latter, the calcarious and fossiliferous 
grit of Harper's quarry and Cornwall-house, called by Mr. Strang- 
way's the " Harrogate Roadstone " may be accepted as a distinguished 
member, of m uch importance both geologically and economically. The 
shales above and below this stratum are very dark in colour, and of 
great thickness. It is not easy to measure or estimate them in this 
respect, as the entire locality displays such evidence of general disturb- 
ance, and the effects of greatest denudation have done little more than 
expose the surface of the lower shales. Mr. Strangwaj^s has recorded 
in his memoir the result of a boring, near Starbeck, carried to the 
depth of 437 feet, which seems to establish my proposition ; the black 
shales towards the bottom of this boring, alternating with bands of 
stone, being quoted 117 feet thick in the upper, and about 137 feet thick 
