56 
In two memoirs printed in the Transactions of this 
Society, namely, in Volumes VIII. and XII. (second series), 
he had described deposits of haematite iron ore, and given 
his reasons for believing that they had their origin during 
the Carboniferous epoch, and were deposited in erosions of 
the Mountain Limestone in some instances, or in others 
interstratified in regular beds in the Lower Coal Measures 
like seams of coal. Long after his papers had been printed, 
Sir It. I. Murchison, Bart., F.B.S., and Professor Harkness, 
F.B.S., in a Memoir on the Permian Bocks of the North 
West of England, printed in Volume XX. of the Quarterly 
Journal of the Geological Society, at page 152, say, “The 
mode in which that valuable ore of iron haematite is found 
deposited in pre-existing cavities of the carboniferous 
formation, and sealed up by Crab Bock (Permian breccia) is a 
matter of great geological interest. Joints, fissures, and 
caverns were doubtless formed in the older rocks antecedent 
to the deposition of the Permian strata, and in these the 
ores of iron, so widely diffused throughout the Permian 
rocks, have in this portion of the north-western region 
assumed the character of haematite. This circumstance 
justifies the inference that these haematite ores are the 
result of an agency which ushered in the Permian epoch. 
The earlier rocks of both England and Scotland are strongly 
impregnated with iron, their composition consisting prin- 
cipally of silica and an oxide of this metal. This latter 
substance originated from the same source which, during 
the commencement of the deposition of the Penrith sand- 
stones, filled up the fissures in the Carboniferous Limestone. 
This conclusion .is applicable not only to the Ulverstone 
district but also to that of Cleator, south-east of Whitehaven, 
where valuable deposits of haematite are also obtained from 
the cavities and fissures in the Carboniferous Limestone, 
which at one time was here covered over by an extension 
of those Permian breccias and sandstones, now forming an 
