59 
they are now found as clearly as it well can be, for the 
plants must have been floated in with the water which 
brought the iron, or else they must have fallen into the 
cavities when such were open at the top, and the iron was 
in a soft state. Of course, the occurrence of such fossil 
plants as Sigillaria, Lepidodendron and Calamitis occurring 
as they do in beds, from the lowest to the highest carbone- 
ferous strata, would give little evidence of any particular 
part of that epoch, but the Sigillaria vascularis so far as 
yet known is confined to the lower coal-field, not far in 
geological position from the Ipstones haematite previously 
alluded to, and the valuable clay band ironstones now 
wrought at Hazlehead, west of Penistone. 
The deposits of haematite in Furness and Cumberland, 
found in hollows of the Carboniferous Limestone, and covered 
up by Till, or “ Pinel,” as it is locally termed, or more rarely 
by Permian breccia, are so much alike in all their characters 
that if the origin and age of one of them are clearly proved 
those of the rest must follow almost as a necessary conse- 
quence. 
W. Brockbank, F.G.S., agreed with Mr. Binney, that 
the fossils now exhibited were valuable illustrations of 
the age of the deposits of haematite ore in the Furness 
district; but they did not afford any evidence of their 
origin, and were merely brought there with the other 
alluvium, and deposited with the iron ore, in the cavities 
of the limestone. The Cumberland district afforded better 
opportunities for studying the origin of these ores. True 
veins of haematite occur in the older slates, porphyries and 
syenites of the Lake district. Bed Pike derives its name 
from the presence of veins of this ore, which gives the 
mountain its ruddy aspect ; and iron appears to have been 
smelted near it, in the time of the Bomans. On Black 
Comb, Dent Fell, and in the valleys above Bavenglass, 
veins of haematite occur in the older rocks, and are worked 
