380 
SECOND REPORT- 1832 . 
types of the imbedded organic remains, thus almost observing a 
law of continuity between the carboniferous lime and lias. I 
cannot conceive that Dr. MacCulloch can ever have read these 
remarks; otherwise common prudence must at once have shown 
him the necessity of cancelling his negation, that geology had 
recently received any fundamental additions*. 
The comparative view of our northern coal-fields f has 
equally extended our knowledge of the varying modifications 
affecting contemporaneous formations. The geology of this 
important district is now fully illustrated by a series of elabo¬ 
rate Memoirs by Messrs. Wood, Winch, Witham, Buddie, and 
Hutton, accompanied by detailed and accurate sectional views 
representing the whole Northumbrian coast, &c., published in 
the first volume of the Transactions of the Newcastle Philoso¬ 
phical Society, a work which reflects the highest credit on one 
of our youngest provincial Societies, and without which no 
geological library can be esteemed complete. It was indeed 
previously known that the millstone grit and limestone shale of 
Derbyshire became in Northumberland complicated into an 
extensive series of alternating limestones, shales, sandstone, 
and coal-beds; but an important addition to this fact has 
been now distinctly established, for we find that to the north 
* Prof. Sedgwick has also fully illustrated the beds of sandstone lying be¬ 
neath this conglomerate as seen at Pontefract. &c., which he has fully shown 
to be equivalent to the rothe todte liegende of Germany (an identity originally 
suggested by the author of this Report): a dolomitic conglomerate like that of 
the southern counties is often interposed between this sandstone and the regular 
magnesian limestone; and indeed in the southern counties, wherever the dolomitic 
formation is most fully developed, the uppermost beds are finefy grained and 
gradually pass into a compact limestone. The Pontefract sandstone is com¬ 
pletely unconformable to the subjacent coal measures, and partially uncon¬ 
formable also to the superincumbent magnesian lime. M. Elie de Beaumont 
has observed the same unconformity between the equivalent gres de Vosges 
and the coal measures on the one hand and the zechstein on the other. A com¬ 
parison of the equally able Memoirs of the French and English geologists will 
he found very interesting. I cannot, however, entirely agree with Prof. 
Sedgwick in assigning to the Heavitree quartzose or porphyritic conglomerate 
a place in the series younger than the rothe todte, and equivalent to the dolo¬ 
mitic conglomerate; a comparison of the German and Heavitree conglomerates 
has convinced me of their close connexion. Mr. Hutton in the Newcastle 
Phil. Trans., has greatly extended our knowledge of this rock. 
f The labours of Prof. Buckland, in which I had the honour of being 
associated with him, had before illustrated the Somersetshire and Gloucester¬ 
shire portions of our south-western coal-fields, with every desirable copious¬ 
ness of detail. I am at present actively employed in completing our survey of 
the South-Welsh portion of these districts. It is greatly to he regretted that 
we have hitherto no good account of the extensive coal-fields of Lancashire : in 
the vicinity of such philosophical institutions as those of Liverpool and Man¬ 
chester, surely this desideratum ought not to be permitted to remain. 
