24 
October.—First Monthly Meeting of the Session.—Mr. 
Procter, the Curator of Mineralogy, read a paper in illustration of 
specimens of the recently discovered deposits of iron ore in York¬ 
shire. These deposits are found at the base of the oolitic formation 
which, commencing on the south bank of the Tees, and extending 
along the coast to Scarborough, stretches in a line, more or less in¬ 
terrupted, through the counties of York, Lincoln, Rutland, North¬ 
ampton, Oxford, and Dorset. At the summit of the Cleveland hills, 
where it was first worked in Yorkshire, it has only a thin covering of 
soil, can be raised at small expense, and is conveyed by railway 
to Middlesborough, to be smelted. Upwards of 1,000,000 tons of the 
stone are already extracted. The bed, where now worked, is fifteen 
feet thick; in some places, twenty. It yields, upon an average, 
about 30 per cent, of iron. There is an extraordinary deposit of ore 
of this character, about two miles from the village of Rosedale, and 
ten or twelve from Pickering. It crops out at the side of the hill, 
and is, at least, twenty-five feet thick. It consists of large boulder¬ 
shaped masses, of an ovoid figure, from a few inches to nine feet in 
diameter, and divided by numerous fissures, as if deposited in a fluid 
state, and contracted in the process of drying. Each of these con¬ 
cretions consists of an external shell and an internal nucleus, the 
external part being brown, the internal bluish black. The structure 
is evidently oolitic, the grains having the appearance of being 
infiltrated with iron. Every portion is attracted by the magnet, but 
it is not, in itself, magnetic. From analysis, it appears that, where 
richest, it yields 48 to 55 per cent, of iron ; it contains no manganese, 
nor any sulphur or phosphoric acid, the absence of which adds 
materially to its value. 
The lias formation is also a source of ironstone. Massive beds of 
it are traceable for miles along the Cleveland hills, with a gradually 
diminishing thickness, as it is followed towards the south. The great 
lias bed is best developed at Eston, where it is extensively worked ; 
and also at Grosmont, and other parts in the neighbourhood of 
Whitby. The paper was accompanied by tables of exact analyses, 
made by Mr. Procter. 
November. —The Rev. John Kenrick read a paper “On the 
Coins found near Warter,” presented to the Society by Lord 
Londesborough. They are about 1,500 in number, and almost 
* The occurrence of ironstone, both in the oolite and lias, is noticed in Professor Phillips’ 
Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire, Part I., published in 1829. 
