PROCEEDINGS 1849 — 1858. 
263 
The Rev. William Thorp brought before the Society a paper 
on the Ironstones in the Oolitic district of Yorkshire, in which he 
compared the extent and yield per acre of the West Riding Ironstones 
with those of Middlesborough and Eskdale. The Low Moor beds 
yield 1,000 tons per acre, whilst those of Eskdale yield 24,000, and 
the percentage of iron in the latter is forty-five per cent., while that 
of the former is thirty-three per cent. The question of the extent of 
the ironstone in the Liassic rocks is discussed, and the author is con- 
vinced that it is of local extent and dies out southwards, though it 
may re-appear in Northamptonshire. 
Mr. James Nasmyth, C.E., of Patricroft, near Manchester, con- 
tributed a paper explaining a new System of Puddling Iron by Steam. 
The annual meeting held in December, 1855, at the Museum, 
Leeds, was thinly attended ; Henry Briggs, of Outwood Hall, occupied 
the chair. The retiring officers were re-elected. The balance sheet 
exhibited much indebtedness, the principal items being, the assistant 
secretary's salary for a year and a half, a half-year's rent of museum, 
and Messrs Baines' account for printing, a total of about £120. 
Papers were read by Mr. R. Carter, C.E., of Halifax, and by Mr*. W. 
Fisher ; the former giving his observations on a new boring machine for 
artesian wells and other purposes ; and the latter on a subject that 
does not appear to have been greatly in harmony with the original 
objects of the founders of the Society, the subject was the supply 
of shells, horns, bones, and woods used in the cutlery trades of 
Sheffield. 
At the next meeting, held at Sheffield in July, 1856, the only 
one during that year, Mr. H. C. Sorby, F.G.S., read a paper on the 
Origin of the Cleveland Hill Ironstone. If the Ironstone worked 
at Eston and other places be examined it will be found to contain 
more or less entire portions of shells, some of their original com- 
position, consisting of Carbonate of lime, others with the Carbonate 
of Lime replaced by Carbonate of Iron. The microscopical examina- 
tion of sections of the stone shows clearly that the minute fragments 
of the shell have been altered in this way, the replacing Carbonate 
of Iron extending as yellowish obtuse rhombic crystals from the 
outside to a variable distance inwards, often leaving the centre in its 
