52 
constitutes less than the 2,000th-million part of the total light 
sent forth from the sun, must be regarded as the power 
which enabled the plants of the carboniferous period to 
wrest the carbon they required from the oxygen with which 
it was combined, and eventually to deposit it in this neigh- 
bourhood, and under this Park, as the solid material coal. 
The Park Trustees hope the day is close at hand when the 
re-union of that carbon with oxygen shall restore the 
energy expended in the former process, and thus enable them 
to utilise the power originally derived from the luminous 
centre of our planetary system^ The Trustees of this Park 
may be congratulated on obtaining an amendment to two 
previous Acts of Parliament, and of the prospect of shortly 
uncorking this bottled-up sunshine, and adding Pontefract 
as a coal town to others in the Hiding, thus contributing to 
the power, wealth, and potential energy of the United 
Kingdom. 
MAGNESIAN LIMESTONE FORMATION. 
If towards the sun- setting Pontefract is surrounded 
geologically by a vast coal- cellar, the town is equally 
fortunate in being bounded towards the sun-rising by the 
mighty formation of the Magnesian Limestone. The rocks 
of this formation may be divided into five bands or layers ; 
the lower yellowish magnesian rocks, resting towards the 
west on a fringe of the Permian Ked Sandstones of Smith 
and Sedgwick. The upper thin-bedded rocks are separated 
from the lower limestones by a bed of red marl, and over- 
lapped in some places by layers of marls and grits. This 
magnesian formation may be called the backbone of Osgold- 
cross. It runs right through the two wapentakes nearly 
from south to north. It varies in breadth from three to four 
and a-half miles, and it is from eighty to one hundred yards 
thick. 
At Brotherton, Knottingley, Cridling Stubbs, and Womers- 
