57 
escarpment a short distance west of Cleator Moor. This 
inference concerning the Permian age of the haematite had 
been arrived at by Professor Phillips, who, in a communica- 
tion to the British Association, of which a short abstract 
was published (Report of Brit. Ass. 1858, Trans. Sects, 
p. 106), illustrated his opinions by maps and drawings.” 
The authors of the paper illustrated their views in a 
section from Park to Furness Abbey, shown in a woodcut 
exhibiting two vertical fissures in the limestone rock, filled 
with haematite and covered up with breccia or crab rock. 
Now this undoubtedly shows that the limestone rock was 
first formed, then that the fissures or erosions were made 
and subsequently filled with haematite. But at what time the 
latter process took place, whether during the Carboniferous 
or Permian epoch no evidence is adduced by the authors 
further than that the beds of haematite are there covered 
up by Permian breccia, and some of the latter has been 
introduced into the fissures. It has been generally supposed 
by geologists that at the close of the Carboniferous epoch 
great convulsions took place in the earth’s crust, and large 
quantities of iron were ejected from its interior. Now, the 
three authors previously named are recognised authorities 
on the age of haematite iron ores, and their opinions deserve 
great attention. When his papers were written, conclusive 
evidence could only be given of the age of the haematite 
iron of Ipstones, in Staffordshire, which was clearly inter- 
stratified in the Lower Coal Measures between the Rough 
Rock or Upper Millstone of Professor Phillips and the 
Geological Survey and the Gannister coal. Some years 
since, Mr. Bolton, of Swarthmoor, near Ulverstone, showed 
him, amongst other fossils, a beautiful specimen of Sigillaria 
vascularis, exhibiting both its external characters and 
internal structure, quite as perfect in every respect as the 
specimens found in the Gannister or Hard coal at Halifax or 
the Bullion seam of Burnley, all converted into haematite 
