11 
THE MOORLAND DISTRICT. 
I he plants which lie in the shale and ironstone, belong to the same 
tribes of cycadem, ferns, and lycopodiform plants, as those which were 
mentioned in the lower carboniferous sandstones ; but the species are 
generally distinct. The sandstone is often filled with fragments of 
carbonized wood, like so many pebbles ; and, occasionally, it contains 
large carbonized branches. Its surfaces are generally black, with par- 
ticles of the same substance. This series may be observed upon the 
coast, from Gristhorpe Bay to near Scarborough, and from that town 
northward to Cloughton Wyke ; and its lower sandstones appear along 
the top of some of the high cliffs between Haiburn Wyke and the 
Peak. Its course inland is on the north side of the tabular hills which 
range from Scarborough to Hambleton ; but is not very easily defined 
across so wild a surface of heath and bog. It is probably thickest, and 
certainly is best known, in the vicinity of Scarborough. 
The calcareous bed (No. 10,) which is found at the top of this 
carboniferous formation, has a considerable resemblance to the calcareous 
layers which have been already described; but its position under the 
Kelloways rock, and the general character of its organic fossils, justifies 
Mr. Smith’s opinion, that it is referrible to the “ cornbrash” limestone of 
the southern counties. It is a thin, fissile, partially oolitic stone, re- 
markably filled with terebratulas, trigonim, unioniform shells, and small 
clypei. Gristhorpe Bay, and Itedcli/f, and the vicinity of Scarborough, 
are the only points where I have seen it distinctly exposed ; and great 
difficulties must always attend the efforts to trace so thin a rock across 
the interior of the country ; I have examined it in Newton dale, but 
it has not yet been discovered on the western side of the moorlands. 
Having thus noticed, in general terms, the characters of the car- 
boniferous and oolitic formation, it remains to state, that of this whole 
series, which measures, in some places, not less than seven hundred feet 
in thickness, no part whatever is continued across the Humber, except 
the calcareous strata. Indeed, I am in doubt whether any portion of the 
sandstones, shales, and coal, is prolonged to the south so far as the river 
