Outlines of the geology of Northumberland

^prfl Wmwrjiitg jptatg

THE GIFT OF

ENGINEERING LIBRARY

kJMSaV <o\-\\©<

Cornell University Library
QE 262.N78L44

Outlines of the geology of Northumberlan

3 1924 004 637 249

Cornell University
Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924004637249

OUTLINES

OF THE

GEOLOGY OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

BY G. A. LEBOUR, F.G.S., F.R.G.S.,

MEMBER OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTE OF MINING AND MECHANICAL

ENGINEERS, AND OF THE GEOLOGICAL AND MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF

BELGIUM, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE " SOCIETE GBOLOGIQUE

DU NORD," ETC., AND LECTURER IN GEOLOGICAL SURVEYING

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM COLLEGE OF

PHYSICAL SCIENCE, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE

•' Turpe est, in patria habitare et patriam ignorarc"

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE :
M. AND M. W. LAMBERT, 50, GREY STREET.

LONDON:
HENRY SOTHERAN AND CO., 77 and 78, QUEEN STREET.

1878.
11

-&fU&-6r3-

<?

A.w*v o

PRINTED BV M. AND M. W. LAMBERT, 50, GREV STREET
NEWCASTLE- UPON-TYME.

PREFACE.

I was led in the first instance to prepare this little

book by the requirements of the class of Geological

Surveying which I have for some years had the honour of

conducting in the Newcastle College of Physical Science.

Most of the work in connexion with this class lay

necessarily in Northumberland, and i the want of any

general geological description of the County to which

students could be referred for leading facts has been 'much

felt by me. At the same time, such an outline should be

acceptable to the miner and — although it is not written in

the popular style supposed to be relished by the general

reader — to the tourists and sportsmen of our Border

County.

G. A. LEBOUR.

College of Physical Science,
October, 1878.

TABLE OF CONTENTS-

page.

Preface ... ... ... .- ■- -- -- >»•

Chapter I. List of Formations occurring in Northumberland . . z

Chapter II. The Lie of the Rocks .. .. .. .. 3

Chapter III. Recent and Sub-Recent Deposits .. .. 5

-Chapter IV. Drift Deposits .. .. .. „ 13

Chapter V. The Permian Rocks .. .- .. .. .. 17

Chapter VI. The Coal-Measures.. .- 20

.Chapter VII. The Gannister Series and Millstone Grit . . ... 30

Chapter VIII. The Carboniferous Limestone, or Bernician Series . . 32

Chapter IX. The Tuedian Beds .. .. .. ., .. 43

'Chapter X. The Silurian Rocks.. .- .. 46

Chapter XI. Igneous Rocks: Dykes .. -- .. .... ..47

Chapter XII. Igneous Rocks, continued : The Great Whin Sill .. 51

Chapter XIII. Igneous Rocks, concluded : The Cheviots .. 55

Chapter XIV. Materials for a Palaeontology of Northumberland . . 58

Index .. .. .. ... ., ... ., 73

OUTLINES

GEOLOGY OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

CHAPTER

List of Formations occurring in Northumberland.

Proceeding downwards in the geological scale — that is to say,
from those deposits which are being formed at the present day
Tinder our very eyes, gradually to those rocks the origin of which
dates from the earliest times — these notes will be conveniently
grouped under the following heads : —

RECENT DEPOSITS

(Or such as are still forming).

Rainwash

Alluvium

Peat

Blowing sand ..
Tidal deposits ..

Land and freshwater.

Eolian.

Marine and estuarine.

SUB-RECENT DEPOSITS

(Or such as are of the same character as the Recent Deposits, but are no
longer forming).

Old lake deposits \

Old river gravels and sands ... V Land and freshwater.

Bripk-earths and clays J

Raised beaches Eolian and marine.

Outlines of the

Kaims or Asar

Moor gravels

Moraine heaps

Upper drift sands

Upper drift gravels

Reasserted boulder clay

Upper boulder clay ,

Lower drift sands and gravels
Lower boulder clay

DRIFT DEPOSITS.

Marine.

-Glacial, land.

■ Glacial, marine, and freshwater.

Magnesian limestone
Marl slate
Yellow sands

PERMIAN.

.'.. Marine.

UPPER CARBONIFEROUS

(Or Coal Measures).

Coal-measures proper \

Gannister beds \ Marine, land, and freshwater.

Millstone grit J

LOWER CARBONIFEROUS

(Or Carboniferous Limestone and Cakiferous Sandstone series).

Bernician series

Tuedian

Marine, land, and freshwater.

Clay-slate and grits

Basalt (Dolerite).
Diorite.

Porphyritic traps.
Felsites.

SILURIAN.

... Marine.

IGNEOUS ROCKS.

Geology of Northumberland.

CHAPTER II.

The Lie of the Rocks.

The General Geology of Northumberland is simple in its broad
features. The beds, as a whole, slope to the sea, so that anyone
travelling from the Coast to the Scottish Border, across the
Country, would be always encountering older and older formations.
As he trudged along he might gradually pass over Permian, Coal-
measure, Millstone Grit, Carboniferous Limestone or Bernician,
Tuedian, and Silurian rocks. The direction of this general dip
lies between South-East and East, so that the strike, of the rocks
runs, about South- West and North-East.

But looked at more closely much of this simplicity of structure
is found to be obscured. A few undulations in the strata have
here and there altered their course, which has been still more
largely interfered with by a few long lines of dislocation or faults.
Then masses of igneous rocks have been injected through and
amongst the originally undisturbed beds, sometimes shooting
along the lines of dislocation and filling them, or squeezing in
between the strata along the planes of bedding, or at other times
rising bodily as great bosses of consolidated trap and heaving the
deposits around them. From these various causes the aforesaid
simple geological structure of the country has been modified not
a little, and in order to arrive at a fair understanding of their
effects it will perhaps be best to enumerate the principal dis-
turbances in their chronological order.

The first of which we have any record occurred before the
deposition of the Carboniferous rocks, and probably when the
sea far away was teeming with Upper Silurian life. The older
muddy and sandy sea-bottoms of Lower Silurian age lay flat and
undisturbed when the Cheviot volcanoes first began to emit the
lavas which we now find hardened into ash and porphyrite. The
older Silurians were tilted upon end by this — probably not all
at once but by continually repeated uprisings. The Old Red
Sandstone times supervened, apd the Cheviot traps were stony
and cold as they are now, although still with a tendency to
occasional movements, when towards the end of that period, the
upturned edges of the Silurians having been planed down by
denudation, the lowest Carboniferous deposits were gradually
accumulated around the flanks of the old fire-hills, abrading their
sides and incorporating their fragments with Silurian and Old

4 Outlines of the

Red sands. So far as we know no important event took place
during the leisurely deposition of the Carboniferous series which,
as it accumulated, crept steadily up the sides of the Cheviot
range, without however entirely covering it, until near the close
of that age. Then there is reason to believe that Northumberland
became once more a focus of volcanic agency. The old Cheviot
centre heaved again, and brpke the beds around it in sundry
places, causing dislocations or faults more or -less parallel to its
contour, with smaller radiating ones in its immediate neighbour-
hood. A great sheet of lava — now basalt— was injected between,
and to some extent through, the Lower Carboniferous Beds,
vSafhilsta few of the radiating faults or fissures already mentioned
~wef5~ fife4^dthjamilar lava, some spreading over the surface
and others failing To~"Teaefe-it.- JThese events destroyed- <the
horizontality of the Carboniferous bectsT Most of them were
now dipping towards the sea, the dips decreasffi'g in amount as
they approached it. In the North they were folded and contorted
much more than in the South, but probably at or about the same
period. One long fold, however, was brought about in the
Southern district from the Cheviot to the Tyne, about where
Corbridge now stands. This was a long low-arched saddle-back
or anticlinal, the result of which was that only to the East of it
did the beds still dip to the sea, whereas On the other side they
either lay flat or gently rolling, as they still do in great part of
Tynedale, Redesdale, and Coquetdale. Then came a time of
submersion, during which the edges of the now-disturbed Carboni-
ferous rocks were planed down and denudation 'was at work once
more. On these eroded beds the Permian sands and limestone
were next deposited, flat and slightly undulating, much as we find
them now. Probably Cheviot still acted from time ,to time as a
centre of upheaval, but at any rate at some time after the
deposition and consolidation of the Permian rocks; another great
series of dislocations was brought about, this time affecting
the Southern parts of the County in a >' greater degree than the
more Northern. Two of these lines of dislocation were especially
noticeable in their effects. One, With a varying shift, threw
down the beds to the North of Newcastle, so that the Permian
limestone was brought side by side with the Coal-measures far
below. This is the Ninety-Fathom dyke, which runs from
Cullercoats, by Denton, to Greenside and Whittonstall, often
much exceeding ninety fathoms in throw, but dying away to
nothing a little to the West of Minsteracres. The other fault
takes up Jthe running, as it were, where the first leaves off,
beginning as it does a little to the South of Corbridge, and
running almost due West and parallel to the Tyne, right out of
the County into Cumberland. This is the Stublick dyke. It
throws the beds down to the North, so as to to bring the Coal-

Geology of Northumberland. 5

Measures cheek by cheek with the base of the Millstone Grit ;
but it has had another and still greater effect, for it forced the
beds on its downthrow side to dip quite sharply towards itself.
The result of this alteration of dip, both in amount and direction
on the ^North side of the Stublick dyke has been two-fold — first it
has (added to the long anticlinal axis already noticed) altered
the strike for several miles from its course, so that all the beds
as they approach the Corbridge fold from the North and East,
instantly strike due West — and secondly it has allowed the-
preservation on its Northern side of a number of small true Coal-
Measure coal fields, which, owing to the high dip near the fault,
comprise many more seams than their limited areas would lead
one to suppose. As usual with large faults, these and others
parallel to them are accompanied by a number of transverse or
radiating dislocations, with minor throws. In later times,
probably ranging to the Middle Tertiary, more faults were formed,
but not of such importance, and these, together with older ones,
were again filled with molten basalt from below.

The above are the main disturbances recorded by the present
geological structure of Northumberland where it is best known,
but it^ must be confessed that several large faults in the north of
the county are not yet sufficiently understood to be included in
any general statement of this kind.*

CHAPTER III.

Recent and Sub-Recent Deposits.

RAINWASH : — According as the various rocks forming the country
axe more or less exposed to the effects of weather, and according
as their texture and structure render them more or less liable to
disintegration, solution, or splintering, so is the thickness of the
deposij: or surface-accumulation known as rainwash. Many
varieties of rainwash occur in Northumberland.

Surfaces of true or re-assorted boulder clay, when exposed; —
as in numberless railway cuttings — to the action of rain, become
capped by a sandy and slightly gravelly rainwash, the clay being
gradually washed away. Exposed sandstone districts, such as
occur sparingly over the Coal-Measure areas, but very abundantly
in the Western half and Northern parts of' the county, afford a

* For instance, a great East and West Fault running from the Coast to a little to
the South of Lowick appears to repeat the entire Bermcian Series. Other examples
<of great Northumbrian dislocations, of which published observations are wanting,
could easily be given.

6 Outlines of the

considerable quantity of sandy rainwash, the distribution of which
is extremely irregular. Deposits of this kind, often several feet, in
thickness, are well seen among the crags formed by the Harbottle
grits, especially at a place called the Swire, near the village of
Harbottle, on the South side, of the Coquet.

Shales are seldom sufficiently , exposed to give rise to much
rainwash.

. The great mass of igneous rocks, which may be grouped
together as the Cheviot Traps, gives rise to three distinct
deposits which, being all due to weathering, may properly be
noted here. These are :*— (a) Clays resulting from the decompo-
sition of the felspar of the Trap, and forming more or less pure
masses of ' kaolin ' of limited extent, and usually filling vertical
fissures in the rock ; (b) a dark brown or reddish earth forming
taluses towards the base of the flanks of the hills. This earth is
chiefly observable where the Trap has a tendency to spheroidal
structure, and weathers in concentric coats. An exactly similar
^product of weathering is very commonly found in connection with
the ordinary whin dykes of the country, and, much less frequently,
associated with the great whin sill. A white earth, occasionally
granular, holding a position somewhat between the white clay and
the brown earth, is in some cases all that the action of rainwater,
continued for a great length of time, has left of the hard bluish-
green basalt of some whin dykes. This is notably the case in the
dyke which formed for many years the Eastern boundary of the
Plashetts coal workings. Here the decomposed mass was so
white and soft that it was generally described as a dyke of
"plaster." (c) A loose, uncemented breccia, due indirectly to
ram and directly to frost, forms long shoots and taluses in the
Cheviot hills, more especially where the structure of the Trap is
more or less massive, or sub-columar, but not spheroidal. The
fragments of which this deposit is formed are sharply angular and
generally conchoidal. The shoots of these stones are well known
locally by the name of " glitters," and are beautifully shown in.
many parts of the Cheviots, but perhaps nowhere better than on
the sides of the valley in which runs the little river Alwin, above
Alwinton.

The limestones do not give rise to true rainwash, but they are
acted on chemically by rain-water in a powerful manner, and part
of their substance — abstracted from them by the carbonic acid
with which the rain is charged — is frequently re-deposited by
springs in the form of calcareous tuff or " travertine." As a rule,
these deposits are of small importance in this district, but in a
few cases — as a little to the East of Dykenook, near Elsdon; a
little to the North and East of Horsley, in Redesdale ; etc. — they
cover ground some acres in extent.

Allied to the calc-tuffs, and, like them, due indirectly to the

Geology of Northumberland. 7

chemical action of rain-water, are certain thin beds of conglo-
merate, which occur notably towards the upper part of a fine
section of drift gravel on the North bank of the Wansbeck, above
Morpeth, just below the mouth of the Font. Here the pebbles
of^the ancient gravel are cemented together in a friable calcareous
matrix, which is probably still in course of formation.

Alluvium: — Under this head are included all those low-lying
spreads of loam, sand, or gravel which form the lowest ground of
the river-valleys, which are still flooded from time to time, or
which, although they may have for years kept above water, may
yet conceivably still be liable to floods in unusual seasons. These
are the greater part of the "haughs" of Northumberland. Similar
low flats skirting the margin of the few small lakes of the county
are to be classed as alluvium also, although in composition they
are distinct from the river accumulations. The latter necessarily
consist partly of the rainwash, before described, and partly of
matter directly torn from their banks by the rivers themselves
and by their feeding burns. The former are usually to a great
extent organic in their origin, and are more or less allied to the
peat-bogs, of which mention will presently be made.

The alluvia of the rivers of Northumberland necessarily vary
in character according to the nature of the rocks forming each
basin of catchment. The mixture of drift materials with frag-
ments of the true local sub-soil prevent the evidence of the
origin of jthe alluvial deposits being absolutely good, more
particularly in the lower reaches of the rivers, but yet sufficient
distinctions are obvious to an attentive observer, thus :

The Till and Breamish deposits and those of the Coquet are
loaded with evidence of their Cheviot origin, the fragments of
porphyritic rocks being far too numerous to; be attributable to
the contents of the drift alone. The upper Coquet, especially
marks its course by haughs of dark brown porphyritic loam or
stretches of gravel, every pebble of which is of Cheviot trap-
sometimes containing or consisting of chalcedony (agate).

High up the Redewater, near Lumsdon, the porphyritic
pebbles are again to be found, but they soon give place to very
sandy loams, often of considerable depth and great breadth, as
between Otterburn and Monkridge.

The North Tyne haughs are free from porphyritic pebbles,
except such stray ones as may be derived from drift deposits.
Here the true alluvia are not very largely developed, and consist
of sandy loams and gravels, in which sandstone, limestone, and
some basalt (from the Whin Sill principally) are the chief con-
stituents.

The South Tyne alluvia are easily recognizable from those of
the North Tyne, not, however, because of any marked difference
in the geology of the country watered by that stream, but on

8 Outlines of the

account of the great mass of old gravels through which it cuts its
way. Old gravels, the constituent pebbles of which belong to the
Western side of the Penine Chain, and probably also in a large
degree to the Scottish lowlands.

The Tyne proper naturally partakes in its deposits of both
North and South Tyne types, and in its tidal part is marked by
loams so argillaceous as to be used for brickmaking, although
they differ slightly from the brick-earths proper.

The Wansbeck in its upper jportion is, for its size, a great
alluvium-making stream, as may be seen below Wallington and
near Angerton. Lower down old gravels again add their already-
rounded pebbles from other parts to the strictly local alluvia from
the West.

The Derwent, except at its mouth, where it blends its delta
with the great haughs of the Tyne, is not an alluvium-making river.

Peat. — This is, in Northumberland, the most universally spread
of the recent deposits, and had not the more ancient fuels been
also a feature of the County, its inhabitants could well have had
recourse to this newer material — as, indeed, they may yet some
day have to do. Although essentially of the same vegetable
origin, it is yet convenient to divide the peat of the country into
two kinds — the moor-peat and the bog-peat. The moor-peat is
naturally more widely distributed than the other. It clothes to
the very summit the steep round-topped hills of the Cheviot
range, where it forms the " moss-hags " so disagreeable to the
pedestrian in these mountains. In the uncultivated part of the
rest of the County it is found on the tail-side of every crag, and is,
in fact, the chief covering of the country at every level. It consists
of a spongy mass of sphagnum often resting on a layer of whitish
or yellowish sandy clay passing into marl. Where this imper-
meable bed lies in a depression, the overlying peat assumes the
character of a bog. This.bog-peat generally lies flat, or nearly so,
immediately over the depression, and that part of- it is the true
bog. In most cases, however, there is an outlet to the bog, some-
times more than one, for though ordinary lakes with two outlets
do not exist, yet peat-lakes of this description are common
enough. For some distance the bog overflows along the outlet or
outlets, and that part of it which thus dips away from the bog
proper is aptly called the " flow " of the 1 bog. Well-defined bogs
and flows are very abundant in Western Northumberland, as, for
instance, in the neighbourhood of Burnt Divot, a wild district
bordering the Irthing, North- West of Haltwhistle; a little further
North about Cairnglastenhope* ; to the North of Darden Lough,
between Elsdon and the Simonside Hills; and in many other
places of the same character.

* The author has a lively recollection of an hour spent with his pony breast
deep in one of the most treacherous bogs in this inhospitable region/

Geology of Northumberland. 9

Blowing Sand : — The wind-accumulations of sand which go by
"this name are of course limited to the coast-line and, in Northum-
berland, although very frequently met with they fortunately cover
no great extent of ground. Blowing sand is best exhibited perhaps
along the coast from Berwick to Bamborough and in Holy Island,
about Alnmouth, and in a lesser degree wherever else the coast-
line is not bounded by rocky cliffs, as along the sands at Whitley
and Tynemouth. The width of the " links " is in no case very
considerable.

Tidal Deposits. — These being limited in extent to the space
between high and low water mark, are easily denned. To them
belong the muds of the Lower Tyne, as at Jarrow Slake, and
those of the Blyth beach, the great sand flats of Budle and Beal,
Alnmouth, and Whitley, etc., and the coarse pebble and boulder
beds accumulating more or less at all the rocky points of the
coast, and of which those at St. Mary's Island are good examples.

Sub-Recent Deposits.

As will be seen, these deposits are, to a great extent, of the
same nature and character as the recent ones, from which, indeed,
they differ only in that,, instead of being still in process of forma-
tion, they are now undergoing destruction — slow or rapid, as the
case may be.

Peat Marls and Clays. — These are the whitish or yellow clays
which have already been spoken of as frequently underlying the
Peat. They are neither more nor less than ancient rainwashes,
preserved by vegetation and considerably altered by the constant
layer of water which they support. They are often marly and,
when so, sometimes contain remains of land and freshwater shells,
all of living species.* There is a strict analogy between these
peat-marls and clays and the ' tills ' or ' underclays ' of many coals.

Old Peat. — tinder 1 this head must'come the lower part of most
of the thickest peat-mosses of the Country in which the remains
of mammalia no longer inhabiting Britain have been -found: —

Cervus alecs, the Moose, at Chirdon Burn (North Tyne).

Cervus elaphus, the Red Deer, at a number of places.

Megaceros Hibemicus, the Great Elk, near to Cawledge saw-mill.

Bos primigenius, at Adderstone.

Bos longifrons,
and the Wild Boar, at Middleton near Wooler. f

* "History of Alnwick," by G. Tate, F.G.S., 1869, p. 468. See, also, "A New
, Flora of Northumberland and Durham," by G. Tate; Chap, i., Geology: Natural
History Transactions of Northumberland and Durham, Vol. ii, (1868), p. 23.
f Tate, op. jam. tit., p. 468.

J. P. Selby, Proc. Berw. Club., Vol. iii., p. 45. (1857).

R. Howse, "Notes on the fossil remains of some recent and extinct mammalia
in the counties of Northumberland and Durham": Tyneside Nat. Field
'Club Trans., Vol. v., 1860-62, p. in.
N.B. These remains are also found in the peat-marls occasionally.

io Outlines of the

, Remains of this kind have been but rarely met with however
—probably because they have been so. little sought after — but
common throughout the peat districts are the stems of trees
where now no higher growth than that of the Ling is found..
These are very generally distributed, but the largest and thickest
stems known to me are to be seen in great numbers in the
thick Moorland peat capping the fells immediately to the South
of Shilburnhaugh on the South side of the Upper North Tyne, in.
the fork between that river and the Whickhope Burn.

Older than many of these ancient turbaries, probably, are
some beds of peat which have been observed on the South
side of the Tyne (at South Shields) lying beneath twelve feet of
brick-earth,* and higher up the river (but on the same side) near
the Redheugh Bridge in a similar position, and which doubtless
extended, or still extend into Northumberland. Old also are the
peat deposits which have sunk below the sea-level on the sea-
shore and now appear to us in the guise of so-called " submerged
forests" such as are seen at North Sunderland^ Newton, and
Howick.f

Older still is the peat which, having been submerged in the
same manner, is now to be seen at the base of a raised beach
some feet above high-water mark near the North Eastern Beacon
of Holy Island.

It is not everywhere possible to distinguish between the traces.
of old lakes and those of ancient bogs. Such traces are, however,
abundant in Northumberland. They are not only easily known by
their clear lake-features, flat bottoms and enclosing rising ground,,
but they are often marked by the name either of the hollows
themselves or of houses or places standing by them. The
frequent occurrence of such names as " Lough House " or " the
Lough," where no lake or tarn now exists, is found almost
invariably to denote the positions of former sheets of water. As
a rule it may be said that where a river or burn runs through the
peat basin, we have the remains of a lake or lough, where the
river or burn only runs from the basin and not into it also, then
we have to do with an old bog merely. The first case is well
exemplified in the old lake of Prestwick Garr near Ponteland —
which, although its drying up was artificially completed, is
distinctly entitled to be looked upon as an old lake— i-through
which the Pont runs, and of Middleton near Angerton in the
Wansbeck valley. The old bogs are much the commoner type
and are met with in all part of the country, especially in the
Western moors where recent bogs still obtain, as in the areas
between the Irthing and the North Tyne, between the Redewater

* Howse and Kirkby, " Synopsis of the Geology of Durham and Northumberland, '*
1863, p. 4.
t See Tate in Johnston's "Natural History of the Eastern Borders," p. 313. (1853).

Geology of Northumberland. 1 1

and the Coquet, etc., etc. A small old-lake basin lies about a
mile and a half to the North of Tarset Station which is worth
mentioning from the fact that its floor is composed of a layer of
very fine white unctuous clay, very like pipe-clay.

Old River gravels and sands. — These are merely the alluvia left
by the rivers which are still flowing, but at such a height above
the highest possible floods that the evidence that they were
deposited in former times, when the " thalweg " was higher than
it is at present, is complete. In consequence, however, of much
of the Drift of the country consisting of pebbly deposits from
which these old river-gravels were often derived, considerable
difficulty frequently arises in attempting to distinguish the one
set of deposits from the other. Where the gravels are clearly
terraced, we may conclude that they are river-gravels. Nowhere
are such terraces better shown than on the flanks of the South
Tyne Valley from Warden Hill to Haydon Bridge and Haltwhistle.
There step-like terraces of coarse gravel may be seen rising tier
upon tier on both sides of the river, sometimes keeping separate
courses for considerable distances but oftener merging insensibly
one into the other. As high as the 300 feet contour line these-
terraces can be traced and even higher, becoming less perfect
in form as they increase in altitude. Above that limit the gravels
continue in many places, but these are no longer sorted and
disposed in long lines by the river in ancient days. They belong
to the mass of Drift gravel with which the pre-glacial valley was
filled. Along the Wansbeck Valley we have a similar double
series of gravels — Drift and River — with the additional difficulty
that the latter are not distinctly terraced, except in certain places,
as at Newminster, just above Morpeth. Any line of division
between the two, therefore, must be extremely doubtful. Along
some parts of the Coquet's course terraces of old river gravels
may be distinguished but they do not attain a high level. The
same may be said of the Aln.

In some cases the presence of old river gravels enables us to
follow former courses of rivers long since abandoned by them.
This has been shown to be the case to the West of Haltwhistle
where a valley of considerable breadth and containing gravel
terraces quite out of proportion with the little burn flowing along
it runs without obstacle from the Tyne to the Irthing. Mr. D.
Burns, F.G.S., therefore rightly concludes that the Irthing in
days immediately following the glacial" epoch formed these
terraces and ran eastward into the Tyne instead of westward
into the Eden.*

Brick-earths and Clays. — Under this heading we include only
such of the brick-earths as\may be referred to river-action. On

* Ann. Rep. Northumb. Union of Mechanics' Institute. Newcastle, 1865, p. 17.

12 Outlines of the

a large scale these are confined in the South to the valley of the
Tyne proper, and in the North to that of the Till. They are
distinctly seen to be of two ages. The youngest, newer by far
than the old-river gravels, are the old loams which form the
upper — unfiooded — haughs on the south side of the Tyne between
the Team and the Derwent. They are largely worked for brick-
making on the Gateshead side of the Redheugh Bridge, ' and
there, interbedded with them, hazel-nuts, etc., have been found
by Mr. W. Dinning.

The older beds of this kind are to be found in the fork between
the North Tyne and the Tyne proper, near Acomb. Here the upper
flat between the St. John Lee hill and the two rivers, on which
the Acomb Colliery stands, is an old-River-gravel Haugh of very
clear origin. Immediately below the gravel, however, but still
■Considerably above the present river-level, is worked for rough
pottery purposes a very finely bedded clayey loam very similar in
many respects to the " warp " of the Vale of York. The laminas
are extremely thin and so coherent and supple that thin hand-
specimens can be folded and rolled like pieces of cloth. This
*' warp " has a very lacustrine appearance, but as it is found at
the junction of the two minor valleys of the North and South
Tyne and at the head of the great Tyne Valley, and as no
remains indicate a lake-deposit, it may be. safer to look upon it as
an old River-loam deposited in a kind of back-water where
extremely slow and undisturbed deposition was possible. This
potter's earth is necessarily older than the old river gravel
beneath which it lies. Its colour is brown.

Most of the other clays used for tile-making, etc., in Northum-
berland belong to the Drift.

Raised Beaches. — Very few genuine raised beaches have been,
noted on the Northumbrian coast. Some doubtless remain to be
discovered. I am at present aware of two only. Of these one is
to be seen on the coast about half a mile to the north of the
mouth of the Wansbeck. It is but fair however to mention that
the Rev. Mr. Howchin, who has devoted much time and trouble
to the study of this district, regards this not as a raised beach
but as an old river bed. He describes it as "the section of a
liver bed in the cliffs, about a hundred yards wide, and occupying
the same position of juncture between the stone and clay which
is the case with the existing river a short distance from its mouth.
It probably possessed two outlets at one time, the present one
being the nearest and most direct, would ultimately drain off all
the water leaving the other outlet choked and dry."

" It is worthy of note that this ancient river bed is situated
above high water mark. This may be the result either of a
•subsequent elevation of the land, or what is more likely to be the
case — the encroachments of the sea have eaten away so much of

Geology of Northumberland. ( 13

its lower reaches, that shows the bed of the river as it once
existed at some distance up stream."* Without attempting to
throw any doubt on Mr. Howchin's ingenious and legitimate
hypothesis, 1 may be allowed to remark that two visits to the
spot have failed to yield me any evidence incompatible with the
more natural supposition that the deposits in question are a
raised beach. Some evidence of the former supposed valley,
either as a wash in the colliery workings or as a surface feature, is
wanted to support the river-bed theory, and it may perhaps some
day be forthcoming.

No doubt has been thrown on the origin of the other raised
beach. This one is on the coast of Holy Island just below the
Beacon at its North-Eastern point. Here the section is as-
follows : —

, ft. in.

4 Clay without Boulders

3 Brown Sand o 4

a Sands with Pebble Bands 3 o

1 Boulder Clay 10 o

Nos. 3 and 2 are the raised beach and between 3 and 1 are to-
be seen in places indications of an old peat bed already referred
to. (See p: 10J

CHAPTER IV-

Drift Deposits.

Kaims or A sar — These, the newest of the glacial accumulations
of Northern Europe, are still a puzzle to geologists. Their
appearance is very distinct, and is nowhere better shown than in
the lower ground bordering the coast in the Northern parts of
the County. The North Eastern Railway between Alnwick and
Berwick cuts through a number of unmistakeable kaims, and
others, equally good, are easily detected in the valley of the
Tweed between Berwick and Carhain. Indeed, the name " kaims,"
now generally adopted as a geological „ expression is, in the dis-
trict named, locally given to the Asar. To take an example,
the road from Lucker to Bamburgh cuts through a true " kaim,"'
part of a long series of them known as Bradford Kaims. To
describe this one will be to describe all, as although in minute struc-
ture the constitution of these deposits varies ad infinitum, yet in
general contour, aspect, and characteristics, they are remarkably
similar. They are all ridges or elongated moundsof gravelly matter

* Rev. W. Howchin in "Wilson's Handbook to Morpeth and Neighbourhood,"'
Morpeth, 1876, p. 109.

14 Outlines of the

more or less irregular in shape, and all, from their universal position
■on comparatively low ground, and from ' other distinguishing
features, give evidence of having been formed during a relatively
recent submergence of the sea-board. They are thus to be looked
upon as, in the last instance, marine deposits, but their stony
-contents are, from the striae occasionally preserved on them and
from their relation to the moraine heaps still left undisturbed on
higher ground, of the same glacial origin as the latter.

The Bradford Kaims are a series of long, very irregular,
meandering ridges of gravel formed of more or less rounded
stones of all sizes from that of a walnut to a cubic foot or two.
They lie above the Boulder Clay, good sections of which can be
•seen in the limestone quarry close by, along the Glower-o'er-em
(Glororum) road. Just as in the typical kaim districts of the valley
■of the Clyde, for instance, the Bradford kaims occasionally enclose
peat bogs, one of which is cut through by the railway to the
South of Lucker. An opening by the road-side (a little to the
East of Lucker Station) gives an excellent idea of the gravelly
mass of which the ridges are composed and of their mode of
-arrangement.

In some cases no doubt there may be considerable difficulty in
separating the kaim gravels from the older Drift gravels on the
one hand and from the newer river deposits on the other, just in
the same way as we have seen that these two classes of accumu-
lations themselves sometimes defy separation. No difficulty of
this kind, however, exists with "regard to the beautiful e_skers of
which we have spoken, in the neighbourhood of Bamburgh.

Good examples of kaims are to be seen at Chathill, Newham
(part of the Bradford ridge), and Hoppen. " In these," says the
.late Mr. Tate, " I have recently [1866] found a few glaciated
rocks, among the waterworn gravel and sands of which these
minor kaims are principally composed."*

Moor Gravels. — : Under this name attention must be called to
some little known and not very comprehensible deposits con-
cerning which the only definite statements that can be made are
•these : — They consist of well-rounded pebbles generally, but not
exclusively, derived from the neighbouring rocks. They are
shapeless, the mounds which may be observed among them,
•being usually due to the recent action of rain and streams. They
are all at a considerable level above the sea. This, their last and
most striking peculiarity, separates them from the Eskers and
from the other gravels already mentioned. The name moor-
.gravels is suggested as implying no theory respecting their origin
and as indicating the fact that they occur on the high moorland
portions of the county. They are very widely but irregularly

* Berwickshire Transaftions, for 1866, p. 239.

Geology of Northumberland. 15

■distributed over Western and Central Northumberland, and can
be well studied, for example (they are well worth study), on the
moor tops between the Coquet and the Rede. That they are
made up of glacial fragments is scarcely doubtful. They have
much the appearance of waterworn moraine-matter — but from
their position the question "Whence came the moraine matter?"
is easier to ask than to answer. More facts are wanted before
these and many other subjects connected with Drift are thoroughly
understood.

Moraine. Kpaps. — Genuine moraine heaps do not abound in
Northumberland, but still there are some, and a careful examina-
vtion of the minor valleys in the West would probably add to the
number known. •

A very good example , (the only thoroughly satisfactory one,
indeed, that I am acquainted with) is to be seen at Whetstone
House near East Woodburn. Here a small crescent-shaped
mound crosses the valley of the Lisle Burn, a tributary of the
Redewater. The burn has cut its way through the centre of the
mound which is therefore not now entire. Its form can however
be observed very satisfactorily, and as the southern arm of the
•crescent is quarried for stone, the material, of which the barrier
is composed can be perfectly well examined. These materials
are sub-angular lywt waterworn) fragments of the surrounding
rocks — sandstone of the Carboniferous Limestone series predomi-
nating. In this crescent-shaped mound we have, there is every
.reason to believe, the actual terminal moraine of one of the last
small glaciers of Northumberland. The Lisle Burn Glacier was
but an insignificant one when it left this little rubbish heap as.the
only token of its existence, but it was the remains of one of the chief
branches feeding the great Redewater glacier which itself united
•a few miles to the. West with that of the North Tyne at Redes-
mouth. Indeed there is no difficulty in reconstructing with
tolerable certainty the network of ancient glaciers which scored
'•the county towards the close of the last glacial epoch.

In the case of moraines the conditions require that the
fragments of rocks be to a considerable extent sub-angular. Not
rounded as in true gravel heaps.

Upper Drift Sands and Gravels. — I have grouped under this
name a set of gravelly deposits which are evidently more recent
than the Boulder Clay, on which, indeed, they occasionally rest,
which are on too high ground to be looked upon as eskers or
kaims, and which are too definite in shape and at too low a level
to come under the head of Moor Gravels. That they are glacial,
there is no reason „ to doubt. If marine, it is clear that they
are older than the Asar of the Coast — and they probably are
marine though we cannot prove them to be so. They consist chiefly
of fine gravel with occasional, false-bedded courses of sand some-

1 6 Outlines of the

> t
times "scared" with coal, and they form conspicuous hummocky-
hillocks on ground averaging from 300 to 500 feet above the level
of the sea. The castellated " dovecot " to the West of Bavington
Hall stands on one of a number of these kaim-looking mounds.
Another is well shown near Chollerton on the Northern slope of
the drift-filled Erring Burn valley. Along the Southern and South
Eastern base of the Cheviot hills again these sand and gravel'
" dodds," as they are sometimes called, can be seen.

It may perhaps be urged that these gravels should be considered
as the equivalents of the Drift sands and gravels which occur in
the Boulder Clay and it must be admitted that were it not for
the marked kaim-like forms which they assume there would be a
good deal to say in favour of such a view which, indeed, may after
all turn out to be the 'true one.

For the present, perhaps it will be safer to keep these deposits
distinct.

Besides these doubtful accumulations, there are the great
spreads of undoubted Upper Drift Gravels and Sands with
occasional bands of unctuous clay, of which mention has been
made before, when speaking of the river gravels. These are
very largely distributed in-i Northumberland and fill most of the
larger valleys. In that of the Aln they are strongly developed
and also in the Wansbeck, the Tyne, and the Derwent valleys.
In the last-named, some beautiful sections are to be seen,,
especially by the river-side near Rowland's Gill, where the sands
and gravels are well-shown resting on the Boulder Clay. This;
is the case also near Mitford above Morpeth on the right bank
of the Wansbeck. At Rothbury likewise they are seen in'
abundance and, as Mr. Topley, F.G.S., has well remarked, the-
difference between them and the porphyritic river-gravel now
carried down by the Coquet is extremely obvious. Above
Wylam, opposite. Corbridge, and at many other places in the-
neighbourhood, the sands are predominant whereas up the South
Tyne the gravels are more frequent. In the latter near Thorn-
grafton striated pebbles (all of rocks foreign to the district) are-
plentiful and would no doubt be found elsewhere if carefully
sought for.

These sands and gravels still fill up a great number of valleys
of which we only become cognizant by workings and borings for
coal. Most of the washes which sometimes interfere so greatly
with winning the coal, causing great gaps where solid rock was
expected are of this kind. Thus the Rev. Mr. Howchin has
been able to surmise with great sagacity that a former connexion
existed between the valleys of the Blyth and the Wansbeck.
This case is not exactly analagous to that of the old Irthing-
Valley discovered by Mr. Burns and already referred to.

The Boulder Clay. — This has been often divided into Upper and!

Geology of Northumberland. 1 7

Lower, and in some parts of England the division is undoubtedly
a legitimate one, since there a great series of "middle sands and
gravels " is seen to intervene. In Northumberland, however, the
Boulder Clay is with a few exceptions, which can be regarded as
exceptions only, a homogeneous mass of stiff brown to bluish clay
laden with boulders of all sizes, limestone, sandstone, basalt, and
porphyrite predominating — all rocks belonging to the surrounding
district. Foreign rocks are usually present in the form of much
smaller fragments. It may be stated that as a rule the upper
portion of the Boulder Clay is freer from Boulders than the lower,
and that, as has been noted before, sands and gravels (of no great
thickness or continuity however) are sometimes found in the clay,
occupying thus in a certain degree a position not unlike that of
the middle sands and gravels mentioned above. The thickness of
the Boulder Clay is extremely variable and its distribution is very
wide. The entire coalfield may, speaking generally, be said to
be covered with, it, and its limit of height to the West is vertically
great, probably not far below 1,000 feet above the sea-level.
That the Upper Drift sands were deposited upon the denuded
surface of the Boulder clay seems abundantly proved.

With one solitary exception no fossils have been found in the
clay. In this case, as was to be expected, the shells found
belonged to Arctic species long extinct in British Seas.*

CHAPTER V.

The Permian Rocks.

Only three fragmentary patches of Permian rocks are left to
attest the former presence of this series in Northumberland,

* In a paper " On the Glaciation of the Counties of Durham and Northumber-
land," by Mr. R. Howse, the following Schedule of the Superficial Deposits &
adopted, viz. : —

" z. Beds of peat, and submarine forests with fossil remains of oak, alder,
mountain-birch, and hazel; horns of Ccrvus Akes and Ccrvus Elaphm,
Bos primigenius, etc.
" 2. Rubble transported from moraine heaps of upper valleys.
"3. Gravel beds, forming remains of ancient raised beaches.
" 4. Sand, forming elevated mounds along the courses of valleys.
"5. Brick clay, with intercalations of laminated-clay, sand, and peat-bed con-
taining skeleton of Megaceros Hibernicus, and stems of Calluna vulgaris.
"6. ? Scandinavian drift, containing angular flints, and small fragments of rock,

Srobably derived from boulder-clay. *

der-clay or drifted glacier-moraine containing fragments of Cyprina
Jslandica.
"8. Ancient gravel, bed resting on rock-surface " :
Transactions of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, Vol. xiii.,
1863-64, p. 170.

t8 Outlines of the

namely at Tynemouth, Cullercoats and Whitley, and Seaton
Sluice. That they formerly spread over a great portion of the
County cannot be doubted, and it is instructive to note that the
preservation of these small outliers is in each case due to
accidental causes. Only the lower portions of the Permians
occur in Northumberland, the sub-divisions left being as follows :

Magnesian Limestone. — Of the great Magnesian Limestone as
it is seen in the County of Durham the Middle and Lower divisions
only form part of the Permian patch at Tynemouth. The Middle
Limestone, being the highest number of the series present, is
here very much denuded. It is very difficult of access, but a
number of fossils are recorded as coming from this locality, the
shell-limestpne, so-called from being the most fossiliferous portion
of the Magnesian Limestone, belonging to this division, which is
also called the cellular limestone. The deposit (as a whole) is thus
described by Mr. Howse* : " An amorphous irregular deposit of
highly crystalline or saccharine limestone, occasionally full of
small, irregular cavities, partially or entirely filled with a fine
earthy powdery substance ; other parts present the appearance
of being formed of shapeless fragments of compact limestone
imbedded in a completely investing matrix, without taking the
form of a true breccia."

Below this limestone lies the Lower division well-known at
Tynemouth and at Whitley Quarries to the West of Cullercoats,
where the Permians have been thrown down to the North by the
great fault known as the " Ninety Fathom dyke." This consists
of compact limestone passing locally into a conglomerate. The
thickness of the Lower Magnesian limestone is given as 150 to
zoo feet.f Fossils similar to those of the Middle division, but not
so abundant, are recorded from these beds.

At the Whitley Quarries, now used as a reservoir by the North
Shields Water Company, the limestone may be well studied, but
neither its tops nor its base can now be seen.

Marl Slate.— -A thin yellowish set of finely laminated beds
known by the name of marl-slate comes next in descending
order. It is seen skirting the rock on which Tynemouth Priory
, is built, but it is practically inaccessible there. At Cullercoats
it can be found, at very low water only, near the end of the
southern break-water in course of erection in the little fishing
harbour. In the Whitley Quarries it has been reached by.a little
sinking.

The marl-slate although only about three feet thick is remark-
, able as having yielded a very fine series of fossil fishes in a

* "Notes on the Permian System of Northumberland and Durham": Trans.
, Tyne. Nat. Field Club. Newcastle, 1858, p. 4.

t Lac. «'(., p. 5.

Geology of Northumberland. 19

beautiful state of preservation. Although at Cullercoats the
bed is, with the rest of the rocks, thrown down by the
Ninety Fathom Dyke, yet it would be entirely hidden from
view were it not for another fault, a small one, running parallel
to the great dislocation and which directly affects the fish-hed.
Owing to this lucky condition of things frequent finds of splendid
fish remains have been rendered possible.

Yellow Sands and Lower Red Sandstone. — Below the Marl Slate
comes a very peculiar rock known as the Yellow Sands, the
characters of which are very striking. It consists of a very coarse
grit made up of perfectly rounded grains of quartz cemented by
Carboriate of Lime. The grains are so loosely held together that
they crumble away to the touch and that hand-specimens can
with difficulty be earned away entire. This grit is very strongly
false-bedded and is cut through and through by a tangled net-
work of vein-looking lines of closer cementation which stand out
in the shape of ribs or ridges from the weathered surface of the
rock. In places these ribs, probably from some form of incipient
segregation in the Carbonate of Lime, weather into small
spheroidal masses. These various aspects of the rocks are very
beautifully displayed in the cliff just South of the Baths, at
Cullercoats. No fossils are known in this singular rock.

Below these " Yellow Sands " and usually grouped with them
comes the lowest division of the Permian Series. This bed or set
of beds consists of reddish sandstone, including fragments of
various coloured shale, and yielding an assemblage of fossil plants
-belonging to Coal Measure species. It has been proposed on
this account to unite this rock with the Coal Measures, and thus
to regard it as Carboniferous instead of Permian. Sir Roderick
Murchison, Mr. Kirkby, and others, have however shown very
sufficiently that this view was opposed to the numerous and
weighty facts which show the Yellow Sands at least to form a
part of the Permian system.

The base of the Permian rocks lies unconformably upon the
Coal-Measures in Northumberland, as indeed it generally does
throughout Britain. In other words, the lowest Permian beds
were deposited after the Carboniferous rocks had been denuded,
and after their originally horizontal — or nearly horizontal —
position had been disturbed and to some extent altered by move-
ments long subsequent to their deposition.

This unconformity is well seen at Tynemotlth, but not at
Cullercoats. At the third point, however, on the coast at Seaton
Sluice, near Hartley, it is very well proved. Here a very small
but unmisitakeable patch of Lower Permian has been preserved
by the aid of a slightly basin-shaped' hollow on the surface of the
Coal-Measures, assisted also by a small fault. No great pritai

20 Outlines of the

facie evidence of discordant stratification is shown here, but
the fact that the horizon of the Coal-Measure beds underlying the
Permian at Seaton Sluice is not that of the beds underlying the
Permian at Cullercoats or Tynemouth, conclusively proves the
real unconformity. In this way the tiny mass of sandstone which
denudation has spared at Hartley is very useful to the geologist.
The late Mr. W. Hutton discovered and described a small
patch of what is considered to be Lower Permian on the North
or downward side of the Ninety Fathom Dyke near Closing Hill,
a small eminence rising from the Boulder Clay a little to the
South of Killingworth House.' Little, however, can now be seen
there either to confirm or throw doubt on this view.*

CHAPTER VI.

The Coal-Measures.

After what has been said at the end of last chapter respecting
the unconformity of the Permian upon the Carboniferous
rocks it will be evident that we could scarcely expect to find
the uppermost beds of the Coal-Measures in Northumberland.
As a matter of fact, these beds^ are not present, and, although we
have some two thousand feet of rock belonging to this division,
we are unable to say how much more was denuded away before
the deposition of the Yellow Sands. In other Coal-fields the
Coal-Measures are often divided into Upper, Middle, and Lower.
This has been attempted in this district, but owing to the facts
just stated, there are many objections to this mode of procedure.
I have therefore adopted a plan which I elsewhere proposed ;\
namely, that all "the beds from the highest-known in the Coal-
Measures in the district down to the Brockwell Coal inclusive —
that is to say, all that series which contains the best coal-seams —
should be called " Coal-Measures " simply, without further sub-
division, and that the beds below the Brockwell, and as far down
as the top of the first important and recognizable band of lime-
stone of the Carboniferous Limestone Series, should be grouped
together as the " Gannister and Millstone Grit Series." This is
the arrangement followed here.

Speaking lithologically, and in the order of prevalence, the
Coal-Measures of Northumberland consist of alternating beds of

* Trans. Nat. His. Society Northum. and Dur., Vol. i. (1831), p. 72.
•i Trans. N. Engl. Inst. Min. Mech. Engineers, Vol. xzv., 1876.

Geology of Northumberland. 2 1

Sandstone, Shale, Fire-Clay, and Coal, the chief characteristics of
which may now be given.*

Shales. — The shales of the Coal-Measures are not distinguish-
able lithologically from those of the other divisions of the Carbon-
iferous rocks of the County, save that they are but rarely calcareous
■(seldom yielding more than 2 per cent, of lime, according to
published analyses, and usually far less) and are more frequently
bituminous. The number of varieties is very great, and a series
can easily be arranged showing a perfect gradation from splint
coal on the one hand, through bituminous shale (or black shale),
non-bituminous shale (blue shale), grey shale, micaceous shale, and
arenaceous shale, to true sandstone on the other. Locally, shale
is called Plate or Metal, and the convenient term Grey Beds is
used to denote the many-bedded alternations of sandy shales and
shaly sandstones, generally micaceous, which form much of the
main bulk of the Upper Carboniferous Series.

Many of these shales contain nodules and continuous bands
of clay-ironstone, some of which have been worked from time to
time, but cannot now be said to be remunerative under ordinary
circumstances. Some of the continuous ironstones will be referred
to presently under the heading of " Mussel Bands."

It is common for the larger coal seams to be covered by black
shale, and some theories concerning the origin of coal have been
based on a hasty assumption that this was always the case. It
is not so, and many cases can be adduced where in this coal-field
the coal is succeeded by grit and, in the Lower Carboniferous,
by limestone. When, however, shales cap the seams, they are
often very rich in vegetable remains, and it is this that calls our
attention more particularly to these ancient compressed mud-
beds. Ferns, Calamites (ancient Equisetce or Mares' tails),
Lepidodendra (allied to our Club-mosses), and conifers, abound
with other less well-defined forms in many of these shales, more
especially in the least micaceous or sandy varieties. Naturally
enough the fossil contents of thdse beds are best known that are
associated with the more commonly worked coal-seams. Thus
the plants of the High-Main, the Bensham, and the Low-Main
Shales have long been collected and described, whereas, unfortu-
nately, other horizons, very likely as rich and interesting, are still
undiscovered or but little known.

But besides plants, some of these shales have proved extremely
prolific in the remains of fishes and saurians.

* The North of England Institution of Mining and Mechanical Engineers have just
issued (1878) the first volume of an almost complete collection of all the measured
sections and borings in Northumberland and Durham. ' The collection, when the
"whole is published, will render it possible to sectionize the coal-field in a manner
quite unequalled in any other part of the world.

22 Outlines of the

It is mainly owing to the unwearied industry of one man, Mr
Thomas Atthey, A.L.S., of Gosforth, that we are enabled to view
side by side, and in a remarkably complete manner, the fauna
and flora of one great horizon in our Coal-Measures. The animal
and vegetable life which thronged East Northumberland shortly
after the deposition of what we now call the Low Main Coal is
better known to us than that of many parts of the living world.
A portion of the shale overlying this seam is a true fish-bed, the
minute searching of which has been a labour of love to Mr.
Atthey for many years, and from which an unequalled collection
of fish and amphibian remains has been obtained. *
These fishes, as will be seen by the lists 1 at the end of the volume,
all belong to species which lived, probably, in fresh or merely
brackish water, no evidence of marine conditions being therefore
forthcoming from this source. The locality whence most of these
specimens come is Newsham, near Blyth, but the fish-bed appears
to be very constant, and has been recognized in various other
parts of the field, and in Durham.

Mussel Bands. — Geologically perhaps the most interesting beds
in the Coal-Measures of this district are the thin deposits known
as Mussel Bands'. These are bands seldom more than a few
inches in thickness, consisting almost entirely of the shells of
Anthracosia — a genus of molluscs allied to the mussels of our
rivers, and supposed (although not on perfectly conclusive
evidence) to be, like them, strictly of fresh water habit. Along
with the shells bits of drifted wood belonging to common Carboni-
ferous forms, and impressions of ferns, are occasionally found.
These little shell-beds contain usually a considerable per-centage
of iron ; in certain cases sufficient to allow of their being worked
as ironstone. The following analysis of one of the best known
and most persistent of these bands is given by Messrs. Clapham
and Daglish + :--—

Sol. in Acid. Insol. in Acid.

Silica trace 31*068

Alumina i'i94 16-292

Lime 4:084 •. 0*988

Magnesia 1-078 0*288

Potash i.'3i9 —

Sulphate of Soda trace —

Protoxide of Iron 18*637 —

Water of combination 11*221 —

Carbonic Acid 14*057 —

5 1 "590 48-636

* This collection has been recently acquired by the Natural History Society or.
Northumberland and Durham, in whose museum it now lies.
t Trans. N. England Institute of Min. Engineers, Vol. xiii. (1S63-64), p. 221.

Geology of Northumberland. 23

The horizon of this mussel-bed is a few feet above the Low
Main Seam ; another equally constant zone of this kind occurs in
connexion with and above the High Main Coal. Altogether, not
more than six Anthracosia bands are known in the Coal-field, and
of these the exact position of two is doubtful. At Whitley, at the
base of the cliff, the shell-bed can be very well seen in places at
low water, and the old shale-heaps above abound in excellent
well-weathered specimens. In the cliff near Hartley there is also
a good exposure of the kind.

One of the highest shell-beds of the Coal-field has, in Durham,
at Ryhope, yielded a marine shell (or, at all events, one belong-
ing to a genus which, although known to be sometimes estuarine,
has no claim to be regarded, as' fresh-water,) viz., Lingula
mytiloides. No example of the kind has yet been recorded from
Northumberland from any horizon above the Gannister Beds
(Lower Coal-Measures of authors.)

Sandstones. — The Grits and Sandstones of the Coal-Measures
are, as a rule, fine-grained and of a greyish or yellowish colour,
but, in truth, they can scarcely be said to have any special
character which they do not share with the arenaceous beds of
the older members of the Carboniferous Series. There is always
iron present in appreciable quantities, the per-centage of oxide of
iron being sometimes as high as 10 and seldom lower than 1, the
average being about 5. It may be noted that the dark colour of
the rock is by no means a sure test to apply in estimating the
amount of iron present, the grey sandstones usually containing
more than the brown ; the white beds being,! however, very poor
in that substance. The richest are, generally speaking, the
micaceous varieties. Messrs. Clapham and Daglish* remark
that " the chief characteristics of the sandstones seem to be the
quantity of iron, lime [very 'rarely exceeding or even reaching 3
per cent, however] , or magnesia they .contain, which is the cause
of their decomposition when exposed to the action of disintegrating
agents."

There is in most of these beds a tendency to segregation of
colouring matter in the form of. concentric bands of various tints,
sometimes giving rise, after long exposure to the air, to singular
variegated effects. This is well-shown in many of the dressed-
stone buildings of Newcastle and Gateshead. The concretionary
action is often accompanied by exfoliation and disintegration.

The thick sandstone known locally as the Grindstone Sill or
Post, whence the celebrated Newcastle grindstones are cut,
exemplifies the above remarks. It is on the whole a fine-grained
moderately hard light-yellow stone, but it is in places soft enough

* Loc. cit.,p.?2i.

24 - Outlines of the

for the manufacture of filter stones, which were formerly exten-
sively made from it,* and its upper part is often " abundantly
impregnated with yellow ochre, which is sold under the name of
die-sand." The chief heights of Newcastle are formed of this
bed, as at Byker, Benwell Hill (Condercum), Kenton, etc. The
Burradon fire-stone, near Killingworth, belongs to the same
deposit-!

It will be seen that variation is common with these sandstones,
and this is the case not only in composition, but also, and still
more markedly, in thickness. In the excellent Coast-sections
between Seaton Sluice and St. Mary's Island instances of very
rapid thinning and thickening on the part of both sandstones and
shales are frequent, and again in the rocky cliffs between Whitley
and Cullercoats. How variously these changes affect the dips of
the beds locally seems very obvious, but, strange to say, this
appears to be by no means universally understood.]:

There does hot appear to be any noticeable change in the
general character of the sandstone beds from the highest to the
Brockwell seam, unless it be perhaps that in the lower ones nests
of well-formed quartz-crystals are commoner, as is the case in the
district between Wylam and the Derwent: l

In all, or nearly all, the remains of plants are common,
Sigillarian stems predominating, but Lepidodendra, and Cala-
mites often occurring also as casts more or less coated with
carbonaceous matter. Many of the finest fossils of this descrip-
tion have been found in one or other of the numerous quarries in
the outskirts of Newcastle, some indeed having acquired a more
than local celebrity, such as the once well-known Wide-Open
tree, from Wide Open Quarry, between Seaton Burn and Gosforth.

Fire-Clays. — Generally forming the floor of Coal-seams, but
occasionally unconnected with , them, we find throughout the
Coal-Measures a number of deposits of Siliceous clay known as
tmder-clay, Seggar-clay, or Thill, and often used as fire-clay.
These deposits are common to all Coal-producing districts.
They are the impermeable clay-bottoms which allowed the swamp-
vegetation of the Coal to flourish, and we may with propriety
liken them to the clayey marls which we find supporting the
growing peat of our bogs.

* N. J. Winch, Transactions of -£he Geological Society, Vol. iv., p. 17., 1816.

+ The sandstones, enumerated here all belong to one series overlying the High Main
Coal, and subdivided locally as follows, in ascending order: — 1. Main or High Main
Post. 2. 70-fathom Post, in one, two, or three members parted by very variable shales.
3. the Grindstone Post. Post is the local term for sandstone but is applied also to any
distinct massive bed, thus a " post of limestone " is often spoken ofT

} See W. Topley, F.G.S., " On the Correspondence between some Areas of apparent
Upheaval and the Thickening of Subjacent Beds." Quarterly Journal of the Geological
Society, Vol. xxx. (1874), p. 186.

Geology of Northumberland. 25

These Seggar-clays are as a rule full of the large roots of
Sigillarian plants known as Stigmaria, and more especially of the
long leaf-like rootlets springing from them. The association of
the Coal and its under-clay, and that of Sigillaria with Stigmaria
are themes always dwelt on at length in elementary text-books of
Geology. They are now well understood, and need not, therefore,
detain us here.

Almost every Seggar is more or ltess of a fire-clay, the best
adapted for refractory purposes containing a large amount of
silica, and being comparatively free from lime, iron, and other
impurities.

The following analysis of a local under-clay is given amongst
others by Mr. Joseph Cowen, M.P., and is quoted- here on account
of the unusually large percentage of silica : —

Silica.... 83*39

Alumina 8"io

Iron and lime 2-43

Magnesia 2*99

Water and organic matter 3-64

100*45*
Coals. — Owing to the varying thickness of the sandstones and
shales intervening between the Coal-seams, to the inconsistent
and ever-varying nomenclature of the latter, to the numerous
intersecting faults, and — more than all the rest — to the thick
covering of Drift which obscures the greater portion of its area,
it was long before the structure of the Coal-field was well under;
stood. In 1814, Mr. Winch thus spoke on the subject:

" It is not possible to discover in the Coal-measures any regular
order of succession, which will apply to the whole Coal-field, and
it is even with difficulty that in very limited portions of it the
continuity of particular seams can be traced. . This arises from
the variable thickness and the rapid enlargement and contraction
of the different beds; that which in one section is scarcely
perceptible, having attained in a neighbouring pit the thickness

of several fathoms " " It is useless, therefore, to

attempt any general section of the Coal formation." f

The late Mr. Buddie was the first to bring order into the
"apparent chaos thus described. In his luminous "Synopsis of
the seams of Coal in the Newcastle district," read in 1830 before
the Natural History Society of Northumberland, he laid the
foundation of all that has since been done in unravelling the
.geological features of the district. In a masterly manner he

* " Industrial Resources of the Tyne, Wear, and Tees." Ed. 2 (1864), p. 207.
t Trans. Geol. Soc. Vol. iv., pp. 12, 13. (1816).

26 Outlines of the

seized the main features of the lie of the beds, and described
them so thoroughly and clearly that since his time it is only in
matters of detail that his synopsis has been found wanting.*

Taking the best-known coals only, and following in the main
the views of Mr. J. B. Simpson, F.G.S., + as the latest and most
exact exponent of the series first tabulated by Buddie, we have
the following seams in the Coal-Measures from the highest-known
in the County to the Brockwell.

COAL SEAMS.

21. Closing Described by the late Mr.- W. Hutton, on the

Hill authority of the late Mr. N. Wood, as cropping out

Seam, on the N. or downthrow side of the Ninety-Fathom

dyke, in a quany about 950 yards from Killingworth

House. The seam was '20 inches thick, and is worth noting since

it is quite the highest recorded in the district, being, according

to Mr. Hutton, at least 450 feet above the next-mentioned coal,

which is usually looked upon as the highest.

From its position the area of this seam is necessarily limited
in extent to the immediate neighbourhood of the spot noted.
•Very little is known of this coal, which may possibly be the same
as the highest met with in the Boldon Colliery pit on the South
or Durham side of the Tynei near Brockley Whins.

Strata: About 450 feet,
ao. Hebburn Fell, About 2 feet ,8 inches thick. It extends over
or Monkton Seam, a very limited tract of country, and is of
inferior quality.
Strata : About 250 feet.
19. Five-Quarter About 4 feet thick. Well-known in Durham
Seam. but doubtful in Northumberland. Probably

the highest thick seam in the North Seaton
Section. (Not to be mistaken for the lower Five-Quarter seams.)

Strata .- About 260 feet.
18. Three-Quarter, \

%%££% ' About 3 feet thick, often less.
or jo-Fathom Coal. J

Strata: Very variable, 50 to 180 feet.

17. High Main, About six feet thick. This seam is often taken

or Main, as the boundary between the Upper and Middle

or Seven-Quarter, Coal-Measures ; a view that I cannot agree with.

or Glebe Coal. That it is in a sense a natural limit of some

* Trans. Northumb. Nat. Hist. Soc. Vol. i., pp. 215-240 (1831).
t See the Sheet of Sections recently published by Mr. J. B. Simpson, and entitled
" The Coal Seams of the Northumberland and Durham Coal-field," 1877.

Geology of Northumberland. 27

kind cannot be denied since it separates a series of thick and
tolerably constant Sandstones above it (including the Grindstone
and 70-fathom posts)- from the rest of the Coal-Measures.
Formerly it was the most valuable seam in the Coal-field,
but is now almost entirely worked or burned out. Between
the Tyne and the Ninety-Fathom Dyke the coal was at its best,
but it also underlies a considerable extent of country to the
North, between Denton and the mouth of the Wansbeck. It is-
the type " Wallsend " household coal.

Strata : — Very variable, seldom more than 150 feet.

16. Metal Coal.

Strata: — 33 feet.
15. Stone Coal.

These two seams are
► or Grey Seam, separate on the Tyne,
and continue so for some
distance to the North and
East, but to the North and West they coalesce and form what is
known as the Grey Seam, a coal which attains a thickness of
nearly eight feet at Cramlington. The Metal and Stone Coal unite
again in Durham where, together, they are called the " Five-
Quarter Seam."

Strata : — Variable, 60 to no feet thick.

14. Yard Coal. About two feet 10 inches to four feet thick.
Above this seam is a shale in which fish remains
are found.

Strata : — 60 to 100 feet thick.

13. Bensham Seam. Two feet five inches to five feet thick. This
is the Maudlin Seam cf Durham.
Strata : — About 75 feet, with thick sandstone at base.

These seams are
■ Five Quarter Seam, sometimes known as
the Tyne Six-Quar-
ter and Tyne Five-
Quarter Seams. They are distinct in the Eastern parts of the
field, but coalesce towards the West of the Steam Coal district.
Strata : — About 50 feet.

10. Low Main, or Variable in Northumberland from 2 feet or

Hutton Seam, less to 6 feet. It is the ' Hutton Seam of

Durham. For many years this was the

owest seam sunk to below Newcastle. This Coal-seam " is not

only continuous throughout the whole extent of the Coal-field,

from Warkworth, in the North, to Haswell and Hetton in the

South (nearly the Southernmost extremity of the Coal-field), but

.... it also yields the best description' of three different

varieties of coal, suitable for purposes not at all similar to each

13. Silf-Quarter Seam,
Strata : — 35 feet.
11. Five-Quarter Seam.,

28 Outlines of the

other, viz. : the best household [in Durham] , the best gas, and the
best steam coal [in Northumberland] ."*

Strata : — Variable, from 30 to 100 feet.

•g. Plessey, of Crow, A variable and inconstant seam, best
or Ryton Ruler Seam (?) developed in the Morpeth district,
where it is known as the Plessey seam.
It is with diffidence that it is here correlated with the seam called
the Ryton Ruler in the Blaydon district. Its thickness is usually
less than 3 feet.

Strata: — Variable, about 80 to 150 feet.

8. Beaumont, About a yard in thickness. It is called the
or Towneley, Beaumont in the Morpeth district? the Towneley
or Harvey Seam, in the Blaydon district, and the Harvey in
Durham.

Strata : — About 20 feet.

7. Hodge Seam. About two feet four inches. Only known in the
Elswick and Towneley district.
Strata : — About 20 feet, sometimes more

■6. Tilley Seam. From two to three feet thick. Occurs in the
same district as the Hodge Seam.
Strata': — From 30 to 45 feet, comprising in the upper part the

5. Hand Seam. A thin (four inches), but well-known seam, in the
Towneley district.

4 Stone Coal. \ Two seams occur-

Strata : — 25 feet. [■ or Busty Bank Seam, ring apparently only

3 Five-Quarter Coal.) in the southernmost

parts of the North-
umberland Coal-field, in the outliers of Whittonstall, etc. . . .
but well known on the Derwent, where they unite (as at
Medomsley) to form the Busty Bank Seam, about six feet thick.
The Five-Quarter Seam is sometimes known as the Six-Quarter
Coal in the Wylam district.

Strata-: About 30 to 50 feet (rarely so thick).

2. Three-Quarter Coal, About a yard thick. Best known between
or Yard Seam. Wylam and Wolsington.

Strata : About 50 feet, variable.

1. Brockwell, From 1 foot to 4 feet thick. Has been looked
or Splint Coal, upon usually as the base of the Coal-Measures,
or Main Seam, but has been taken by the Government Geological
Survey as the Boundary line between the Middle
and Lower Coal-Measures or Gannister Beds. It appears to be

* " Industrial Resources of the Tyne, Wear, and Tees." Ed. a, (1864), p. 13.

Geology of Northumberland. 2 9.

fairly constant throughout the district, but this may be owing, to-
some extent, to the fact that the lowest workable seam of any
district is ipso facto called the " Brockwell."

Besides the above twenty-one principal seams there are a great
number of minor beds of Coal which it would serve no good
purpose to enumerate. Although occasionally sufficiently thick
to be profitably worked, they are not so, as a rule, and are for the
most part very incompact. Mr. T. Y. Hall, in 1854, stated the
seams then known in the Coal-field as fifty-seven. Owing to the
increased borings and sinkings since that date that number is
now very much greater.

A glance at a modern geological map of Northumberland will
show that beyond the regular Coal-field extending from the
Coquet to the Tyne there is a line of small detached semi-basins
of Coal-Measures stretching from the main mass to Westward
beyond the County boundary into Cumberland. This extension
of the Coal-Measures was first pointed out by Mr. Nicholas Wood
in 1831 in a remarkable paper, which — with Buddie's synopsis —
may be said to have done more for the advancement of North-
umbrian Geology than any two memoirs written before or since.*
A reference to our Chapter on the Lie of the Rocks (p. 4) will
show that two causes have united to bring about this arrangement,,
viz. : first, the general flatness of the beds West of the long
Corbridge fold; and second, the disturbance of that flatness
by the great Stublick Dyke. It will be seen that most of these
little Westerri Coal-fields lie on the downthrow side of that dyke,
and that one or two less important ones are similarly placed as
regards the Western or dying-out portion of the Ninety-Fathom
Dyke.

Although by far the most important of the rock-divisions of
Northumberland, it will be noticed that beyond matters of detail
there is but little complexity in the Coal-Measures as there
developed. From Acklington, where the Northernmost outcrops,
are worked, and where the correlation of the Coals is not
a little doubtful, through Widdrington, Woodhorn, etc., to the
well-known old pit sections on the Tyne, we find (faults being left
out of consideration) scarcely any change of importance affecting
the series : local variations in thickness here, the splitting up, of
seams there, and similar accidents, although of much interest
commercially, being, in regard to the distance involved, extremely
small matters, geologically speaking.

The changes that do occur are such as are common in all
Coal-fields, and can all be referred to the normal conditions
under which coal-bearing strata were deposited. We sometimes

* Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Northumberland. Vol, i. (1831), p. 302,

^o Outlines of the

hear of the " swellies," or local thickenings of coal, along lines of
depression — ancient Coal-Measure miniature valleys in fact — as
wonderful accidents. A little reflection will show that old land-
surfaces, such as our coal floors tmce were, need not, according
to any known law, have been of perfectly uniform level — a walk
over a modern Peat-moss or swamp will show that Peat has its
"swellies" as well as coal — and that we must not wonder, but
observe. But if such " accidents " are to be expected, they are
none the less interesting on that account. The well-known
"swelly" of the Low Main Seam, which Mr. Hurst has
described with such minuteness and care,* is an excellent example
of this heaping up of Coal-matters owing to the form of the floor
or thill, and full descriptions of other cases are much to be
•desired.

Other minor disturbing elements in the continuity of the
seams are so called " stone-dykes," which are frequent in many
collieries. These are merely ancient " washes," in every respect
to be compared to the washes of sub-recent deposits which we
have already spoken of, and from which they differ only in having
filled up the valley cutting through the denuded seam, in
Carboniferous times, before or during the deposition of the over-
lying beds. By mapping out the courses of swellies and " stone-
dykes " we arrive at a general notion of the small features which
alone seem to have broken the monotonous uniformity of the
ancient flats on which the* coal vegetation grew. •

CHAPTER VII.

The'Gannister and Millstone Grit Series.

The rocks which in Lancashire and Yorkshire are conspicuous
under these names are in Northumberland in nowise distinguished
from the Coal-Measures proper, of which, indeed, they are simply
the continuation. They comprise all those beds which lie
between the Brockwell Seam and the Felltop Limestone, and like
the great Series described in the, last chapter, consist of sand-
stones, shales, and coals. The last, as a rule, are thin and seldom
workable. They appear, indeed, to be much less constant than
is the case with the larger seams above, but not less so than the
smaller ones, to which alone they should properly be compared.
The name Gannister is given to the upper portion of this
•division on the assumption that the beds comprised in it are the

Trans. N.' Engl. Inst. Min. Eng. Vol. viii. (i860), p. 23.

Geology of Northumberland. 3 1

•continuation or true equivalents of the well-known Gannister-
bearing rocks farther south. Gannister is a local term applied
to an extremely hard and very fine-grained, compact, siliceous
kind of underclay usually pierced through and through by a great
number of fossil rootlets (stigmarian), and valuable for refractory
purposes. Now, the presence of stone answering this description
in a greater or less degree in Northumberland (as at Saltwick to
South of Morpeth, and at several places to the South of Stocks-
field) somewhere about the horizon at which it occurs in other
districts (although the parallelism has been more than once
questioned), lends force to the view that we have here, in truth,
the representative of the true Gannister Series, or Lower Coal-
Measures. This has been further favoured by the discovery,
which I had the pleasure of making early in the present year, of
a few marine fossils — including Aviculopecten papyraceus, the
Gannister fossil pay excellence — in these beds near Whittonstall.*

With regard to the Millstone Grit there is no reason to doubt
that what is known by that term here is really the representative,
or in part the representative, of the Millstone Grit which caps
Ingleborough, Kinderscout, and so many others of the great
Carboniferous hills further South.

In short, " in Northumberland the place where the Millstone
Grit should be undoubtedly exists, but the grits themselves are
sadly deficient both in character and thickness. Shales, shaly
sandstones, and sandy shales, with a few beds of sandstones,
seldom coarser in grain than many beds in the Coal Measures,
■and not nearly so coarse nor so thick as some of the grits of the
limestone series below — these, in considerable spreads between
the Derwent and the Tyne, and in a, narrow band from the latter
river to the sea near Warkworth, are the component parts of the
Northumbrian Millstone Grit. This miserable representative of
the great hill-capping deppsit further South would never have
been recognized as a chief division here had Northumberland
been an island, and had not the traditions of its greatness come
from elsewhere. In fact it may be affirmed that the Millstone
Grit has, as it were, traded on its thickness. In Northumberland
it is thin where it enters the county to the South, and it is much
thinner where it leaves it on the East Coast; it has here no
lithological character which it does not share with members of
the series above and below ; it has no distinctive fossil remains ;
in short, it has nothing peculiar to it but its position."f

As I have stated already, there are some thin coal seams in
hoth the Gannister series and Millstone Grit, and some of them

* See " Nature" for February, and the Geological Magazine for March, 1878.
t Trans. North. Engl. Inst of Min. Engineers, Vol. xxv., 1876, p. 227.

32 Outlines of the

have from time to time been worked. A small colliery is, or was
very recently, open to the South of Harlow Hill (on the Roman
Wall) on the road to Ovingham, the coal worked being called the
"Crankey" seam, and looked upon generally as the Brockwelf
coal. It is however really one of the seams in the Millstone
Grit series.

At Harlow Hill, the lowest bed of this set of rocks, a thick
massive yellow sandstone flecked with rust-spots is seen to rest
on what is probably the finest exposure of the Felltop Limestone.

As a consequence of the small importance of the coal-seams
known to exist in the Gannister beds, not many detailed sections
of sinkings or borings can be referred to for details of the strata.
One of the few known is a boring which was made many years
ago in Chopwell woods, on the Northern slope of the Derwent
Valley, where a constant alternation of thin sandstones and shales,
with worthless seams of coal in tolerable quantity, was proved to
a depth of nearly 300 feet beneath the Brockwell coal.

For many years a bed of ironstone was wrought in the upper
portion of the Gannister series in the Derwent district. It was
known as the "German Band"— a grotesque name due, not to
any covert allusion to itinerant musicians, but to the small colony
of German sword-makers who in former days worked this iron-
stone and plied their trade at Derwentcote.

The Millstone Grit beds are well seen at Warkworth, where
the Coquet valley exposes fine sections of thenu The Wansbeck
valley likewise displays them fairly well about Mitford, a little
above Morpeth. They are, however, best seen in the* country
lying between the Derwent and the Tyne, where, owing to the
small amount of dip, they occur in wide spreads and outliers. To
the North of Blanchland they can be well studied, as regards
their relations to the Limestone Series below, the upper portion
of which only occurs there.

CHAPTER VIII,

The Bernician Rocks.

The chief peculiarity of the " Bernicians " may be said to be that
representing as they do a number of divisions, which, in other
parts of Britain and on the Continent, are well and clearly defined,
yet they cannot themselves be divided at all in any natural
manner.

Geology of Northumberland. 33

The series consists essentially of numerous beds of limestone,
of which the thickest seldom exceed thirty feet in thickness, of
.grits and sandstones of every texture from that of the coarsest
.grit to that of the finest-grained flagstone, of shales of every
•character, and of coals with and without underclays in every
way comparable, except as to commercial importance, with those
•of the Upper Carboniferous Series. All these beds alternate
rapidly so that a complete list' of them, bed by bed, if it could be
accurately drawn up, would be of exceedingly great length.
Moreover the value of such a detailed vertical section would be
much lessened by the fact that it would only be true for the
particular line along which it was measured. The thickness of
the beds varies extremely from place to place, and many of them
are of local occurrence only, and are frequently found to thin
away and disappear very rapidly. Nor is it only the individual
beds making up the series which alter so constantly in thickness,
but the set of them as a whole undergoes very remarkable changes
in this respect.

First, then, as to the latter point. The entire thickness of the
series in the Alston Moor district, which can very fairly be taken
as the extreme South of Northumberland, was measured by
Westgarth Forster as being about 2,500 feet; in the North
of the County (the Alnwick and Scremerston district) about
the same was the thickness estimated by the late Mr. G. Tate ;
whilst between these two regions, in the tract lying between the
Tyne and the Coquet, the maximum thickness attained is at least
-8,000 feet. This fact — this thickening of the Lower Carboniferous
rocks in the centre of Northumberland, when once known, gives
a clue to the geological structure of the County which is of great
value.* As to the changes in individual beds, it would be quite
out of place to give full details of such facts in a general sketch
like the present, but the following truths will be confirmed by all
■careful observers. J Having regard to the thick limestones bf
Derbyshire — the " Mountain" Limestone properly so-called — and
the thin and rare calcareous beds contained by the Series in
Scotland, it might very reasonably be supposed that the Berni-
cians, offering as they do a passage from the one form or "facies"
to the other, would be marked by a regular thinning and dying'
•out of it's beds of limestone. This is only partially the truth,
however, for a close examination of the Series will show that
although many of these beds in their trend from South to North
do thin out and occasionally disappear, yet many of them main-
tain and even increase their thickness. Not only that, but many

* See Westgarth Forster's "Section 1 of' the Strata," 1829. Also G. Tate's
"History of Alnwick," 1867, and G. A. Lebour "On the larger Divisions of the
•Carboniferous Rocks in Northumberland," Trans. R^in. Inst. 1876.

34 Outlines of the

new limestones make their appearance. This last is a point of
some importance, and is more particularly illustrated in the area
of greatest total thickness already referred to. Nor are the lime-
stones alone affected in this manner; the grits are in a very
marked degree inconstant, thick crag-makmg beds in a short
space dwindling away to nothing, and being replaced by shales of
equally uncertain continuity. The coal-seams likewise exhibit a
much greater tendency to split up, thicken, and thin out in short
distances, than they do in the Coal-Measures.

So much for the general characters of the Bernician Series.
Its most marked stratigraphical features may now be considered,
in descending order.

The top-most bed of the Series is known as the Felltop lime-
stone, a name which is also given, unfortunately, to one or two
, occasional thin and impure limestones which sometimes occur
above it, in what, according to the classification here followed, is.
the base of the Millstone Grit. It is not often well-exposed,,
especially in the district South of the South Tyne, but from the
Tyne to the Wansbeck it is in some places quarried and capitally
seen. At Harlow Hill in particular, in a quarry to the South of
the Roman road, it is beautifully exhibited. This section has
been admirably described by Mr. Tate in his " Geology of the
Roman Wall," published with Dr. Bruce's large work.

Between the " Felltop " and the " Little '" Limestone in the
Alston District is a thickness of some 350 feet of shales and
sandstones with no limestones. This interval in the Matfen and
Inghoe district (North of the Tyne) is found to have increased to.
no less than 1,450 feet, and is, moreover, marked by the-
appearance of three intercalated beds of limestone quite as
important in thickness and quality as the best of our Northum-
brian limestones. These three beds form conspicuous features
in the country between the Tyne and the Wansbeck, and one of
them at least continues to the northernmost extremity of the
County. They are well seen about Belsay, and are largely
quarried near Corbridge.

Accompanying this great thickening of the mass of the strata
and the intercalation of three limestones between the Felltop and
the Little Limestone there is a very obvious disproportion,
between the increase of the shales and that of the sandstones.
In the South- West, the total thickness of the sandstones is nearly
equal to that of the shales, while here the shales form scarcely
one-fourth of the entire mass. Between the lowest of the inter-
calated limestones and the Little Limestone is about 1,250 feet
in the Matfen district. This is practically made up almost
entirely of sandstones and grit, often Very coarse-grained and
conglomeritic. At Inghoe, Shafthoe, and Rothley Crags, for

Geology of Northumberland. 35

instance, quartz pebbles larger than pigeon's eggs occur, and
garnets have been found. These grits — which may appropriately
be called the " Inghoe Grits "—'were formerly generally con-
sidered as being of Millstone Grit age, and it is to be noted that
as they lie above the" Great Limestone " they would be rightly
so placed according to the late Prof. J. Phillips's classification,
which is, however, in no otherwise applicable to the district.

Proceeding North of the Coquet, the " Inghoe Grits " thin
considerably, as, indeed, is the pase with most of the groups of
beds which are abnormally thick in the centre of the County.*

The next limestone in descending order is the " Little Lime-
stone;" an extremely constant bed although not always easily
seen, being seldom worked for lime. From the Alston district to
the Wansbeck it is well-known under the name here given, but
further North it receives a variety of names such as the following:
Licker Limestone, Chirm Limestone, etc.

A well-known seam of coal lying below this limestone has
given it more local importance than it would otherwise have
gained, and a very few feet below this coal there occurs locally
in the South and North Tyne districts another intercalated lime-
stone, a thin bed seldom visible, but exposed in the bed of the
South Tyne below Allerwash, and in that of the Silly Burn, North-
East of Haydon Bridge.

A variable thickness of strata, averaging about 50 feet and
usually consisting of good building sandstone (the " Black Pasture "
stone) and a thick shale below, separates the " Little " from the
"Great" Limestone. This latter bed is perhaps the best-known
of any of the Series and affords a splendid geological horizon.
Notwithstanding faults and occasional eclipses by Drift this
limestone can be traced with absolute certainty along the entire
line of its outcrop in Northumberland. It is quarried almost
everywhere, and very frequently forms a distinct feature in the
scenery of the country. Its fossils are better known than those
of any other bed in the region, and it may well be looked upon as
the type of the Bernician limestones. At Whittington, near
Matfen, it is more than forty feet thick, but further North it is
thinner, averaging from 25 to 30 feet. It is known by several
names along its outcrop, the principal being the "Main" and
" Ten- Yard " Limestone.

Forming a very regularly-parallel line with, and to the West
of, that of the " Great Limestone " is the equally constant
" Four-Fathom Limestone," the chief stratum between these
being a massive Sandstone very much used for building purposes,
and known by various names, the principal being the " Quarry

* See G. A. Lebour " On the Little Limestone and its accompanying Coal in South
Northumberland." Trans. Min. Inst. 1875. Vol. zxiv., p. 73.

36 Outlines of the

Hazle," in the mining districts, and the " Prudhamstone " in
Tynedale.

This limestone attains a thickness of forty feet at Lippwood,
near Hay don Bridge, but further North it varies from 20 to 30
feet only. It was in this limestone that the interesting Foraminifer
was first found in 1868, -by Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, at the Elf
Hills Quarry, near Scot's Gap, which has since made some stir
in the Geological world under- the name of Saccammina Carteri,
given to it by Mr. H. B. Brady, F.R.S. This organism occurs in
bands in the Limestone, and for some time was thought to be
peculiar to it in Northumberland. It has now,. however, been
found at several other horizons, chiefly by Mr. W. Topley, F.G.S.,
in the North of the County, the Rev. W. Howchin, in the Halt-
whistle district, and myself. Still, the Limestone can very fairly
be called the " Saccammina Limestone," a name which I gave
to it in some of the maps of the Geological Survey, as nowhere
else has Saccammina been yet found in such quantities or so con-
stantly present. In the mining district of Allenheads, so marked
was the fossil that that portion of the limestone which contained
it was commonly known to the miners as the " spotted post." *

Although the name Four-Fathom Limestone is only strictly
appropriate in the Alston district, yet it is attached to this lime-
stone for a considerable distance to the North, when it changes
its name (if change it can be called) to " Eight- Yard Limestone,"
by which it is very generally known North, of the Coquet. Its
chief other name is the " Lowdean " Limestone.

The next limestone is almost as easily traceable as the two
last, and is marked almost everywhere along its course by, an
overlying bed of shale containing nodules of ironstone, which
have from time to time been worked, but without much success.
Old workings, where the fossiliferous nature of the shale can be
seen, are to be found along the crop of the bed between the
Haltwhistle Burn and Bardon Mills, at Brinkburn, Lowick, etc.

The names of this limestone are somewhat puzzling, as in the
South-West district it and the following bed are" both called
sometimes the " Three-Yard " and sometimes the " Five-Yard "
Limestone. In the Northern district, however, it appears to be
generally known as the " Six-Yard " Limestone ; among its other
names is The " Acre " Limestone.

Another marked bed of shale, frequently fossil-bearing like
that last mentioned, caps the succeeding bed of Limestone.-
The latter is the last of the calcareous bands which we can with
safety (at present) carry from the Alston district entirely across
the County. It has been named the Beadnell Limestone by Mr.

. * I understand that since .the. above was written this fossil has been detected by
Prof. H. A. Nicholson, of St.-Andrew's in some Scottish rocks of Silurian age.

Geology of Northumberland. 37

Tate, from the place on the coast where it can be best seen, but
besides this and the names " Three " and " Five " Yard Lime-
stone which it bears in the Tyne district, it, like the others,
is furnished with a variety of appellations of which these, are the
principal : the " Eelwell " Limestone, " Main " Limestone,
" Sunderland " Limestone, etc.

Leaving out the non-continuous beds already spoken oi, we
have now enumerated in descending order six distinct calcareous
horizons which can be clearly observed from one end of North-
umberland to the other. With the exception of the very marked
local thickening of the beds in the Matfen district, between the
topmost. and the second of these horizons, the thicknesses of the
shales and sandstones intervening between them do not vary
greatly in this long distance, and the correlations are compara-
tively easy. But if the upper members of the Bernician Series
can thus be correlated from South to North with safety, this is
no longer so as we descend lower down >n the Series. Several
elements of difficulty here interfere to hinder the formation of a
true comparative scheme applicable to both South and North.
In the first place, a large extent of country, involving probably
considerable stratigraphical changes, intervenes between' the
Penine Escarpment, where alone the beds below the so-called
Tynebottom Limestone are exposed on the South, and the
southernmost point at which they are visible in Northumberland.
Secondly, when we do reach them we find that they comprise a
number of limestone beds so much larger, than in the South-
Western area, and with such a scarcity of distinctive features, that
any attempt to follow Westgarth Forster's nomenclature is as yet
hopeless. Moreover, the central district,' as in the case of the
Inghoe Grits, shows an immense development of the aggregate
thickness of the lower beds as well as an -increased number of
limestones. Thirdly, when the Northernmost area is carefully
examined, although the thickness of the whole is reduced to
something like its original type, and the number of limestones is
once more comparable to that at Cross Fell, yet to name these
beds in accordance with any system originating from a knowledge
of the South-Western region would be fraught with much diffi-
culty and almost certain failure in the present state of our
knowledge.

A list of the chief Coal-seams belonging to this great Limestone
Series in the Southern half of the County (a first and probably
imperfect attempt) will now be given, and will be followed by a
similar one of the better-known Northern district.

12. Felltop, Limestone Coal. Below the Felltop Limestone; some-
times called the Newton Underwood
Coal, in the Wansbeck and Font district.

38 Outlines of the

ii. Belsay and Netherwitton Coals. Below one or other of the

intercalated limestones above
the Inghoe Grits. Three seams seldom worked.
10. Oakwood Coal. In the Inghoe Grits. Apparently of local
occurrence only. Worked at Oakwood, near
Acomb, in the Hexham district.

9. Little Limestone Coal. Below the Little Limestone. In one,
two, three, or even four seams. Present
from the Alston to the Berwick district. This coal is known
under a great variety of names, of which the chief are Acomb
Seam, Blenkinsopp Coal, Haltwhistle Coal, Clarewood, Inghoe,
Boghall, and Cambo Seams.

8. Great Limestone Coal. Just below the Great Limestone. A
thin seam seldom worked, but tolerably
constant. It was formerly worked at Great Whittington.
7. Shilbottle Seam. Below the Six-Yard Limestone. Present, but
very thin and irregular, in the Southern half
of the County. Proved at Little Bavington.
6. Cowden Coal. Below the Whin Sill. In the West Bavington

district. Worked at Carrycoats.
5. Gunnerton Coal. Position doubtful, but below the last.
4. Wark Coals. Position doubtful, but probably near the last.
The Greenlees Coal, worked formerly close to
Greenlee Lough, is believed to be on this horizon.
3. Redesdale Coals. Exact position' in the series doubtful, but
certainly low down. To this group are referred
the seams known as the Stiddle Hill Coal, the Upper Hall Seam,
the thin Bellingham Coals .(Carriteth, Brier Edge, etc.), the
Elsdon Seams (Andrew's Close, Soppit, etc.), and those worked
at Hareshaw Head and Browrilees. The correlation of these
seams is a matter of great difficulty, and some years' constant
attention to the subject in the field have thrown but little light
upon it.

a. Plashetts Coals. Below the Dun Limestone and the Piper's
Cross Limestone (sometimes called the
Papist's Cross Bed). This group consists of three chief workable
seams, viz. :—

a. — Plashetts Coal.

b.—Gneneyes Seam. Separated from the last by the Green-
eyes Crag Sandstone.
c. — Shilbumhaugh Seam. Separated from the last by a great
thickness of rapidly alternating shales and sand-
stones, the former largely predominating, and full of
fossil Entomostracans.

Geology of Northumberland. 39

Above a is a seam know as the " Thirty-inch Coal," which
lias been worked in places in a very small way, and between b and c
■comes another thinner seam which has been worked at Starslee.

I. Lewis Burn Coals. These are separated by a considerable

thickness of rock (chiefly massive sand-
stones with interbedded thin ripple-marked flaggy and impure
limestones) from the Shilburnhaugh coal horizon. The coals are
more splint-like than most of those already named, and where
-they are best seen — in the Lewis Burn valley — they are disturbed
and dip at very high angles owing to numerous faults.

The following is a list, in descending order, of the Bernician.
Coal-seams which have been worked in the North of the County,
beginning with the Little Limestone Coal : —

ia. Little Limestone Coal. Below the Little Limestone. In three
or even four seams, known as the
Parrot, the Rough, the Licker, and the Chirm Coal. The Rough
and Licker seams are those chiefly worked.

II. Great Limestone Coal. Below the Great Limestone. Called

the Dryburn Coal. Very variable in
thickness and seldom worked, except in the Lowick district.

10. Shilbottle Coal. Below the " Six Yard " Limestone. Called
also the Acre Coal. It is very variable in
quality and thickness and is best at Shilbottle. Tate says that
there " it is the best coal in the Mountain Limestone formation."

g. Beadnell Coals. Below the Beadnell Limestone. Two seams,
of which the lowest attains a thickness of 6
feet. This is known also as the Eelwell Coal; . -.

8. Oxford Limestone Coals. Below the Oxford Limestone^ Four

principal seams, viz. : —
a. — The Greenses, Allerdean, or • Swinhoe Coal,
b. — The Muckle Howgate,. or Fleetham Coal,
c. — The Little Howgate Coal,
d. — The Upper Scremerston Main Coal.
7. Dunstone Coals. Below the Dun Limestone. Three seams,
of which the two lower are the most
important and are still worked, viz. : —
a. — Raby's Coal.

b. — The Fawcett or Caldside Coal. This seam is looked upon
in the district as lying usually forty fathoms below the
Hobberlaw Limestone.

6. Blackkill Seam. Reckoned as being about ninety fathoms
below the, Little Howgate Coal. This seam
is also named the "Scremerston Main" and the "Craw." coaL

4© Outlines of the

5. Hardy Coal. Two or three fathoms below the last. Some-
times in two seams, when the upper is called
the. Hardy, Stony, or Kiln Coal, and the lower the Diamond
Coal.

4. Bulman Coal. Five fathoms below the last. Called also th&
Cancer or Main Coal.

3. Three-Quarter Seam. About 18 fathoms below the last.

2. Cooper'EyeCoal. Three or four fathoms below the last. Known
also as the Stony or Lady Coal. A very
variable seam, formerly worked at Eglingham.
1. Wester Coal. From ten to twelve fathoms below the last,,
and the lowest worked coal of the series.
The table now given is an attempt at a correlation of the-
h'orizons of the Bernician Series from South to North, as indicated
by the coal seams :

SOUTHERN DISTRICT. CENTRAL DISTRICT. NORTHERN DISTRICT.

Crow Coal, or Upper Coal Sill. . Felltop Coal.

Belsay Coals Netherwitton Coal.

Oakwood Coal.

^nd L L m o e w Coal^lf.'.^. 11 ^} Little, Limestone Coal .. {R^ Rgg, *IJd»r

Great Limestone Coal . . Dryburn Coal.

Shilbottle Coal Shilbottle or Acre CoaL

- Beadnell Coals.

(Cowden Coal ...
Wark Coals .....
Redesdale Coals.

Coa Sr(?Y.tT. CTb . yS . c ! r . L !! n f:} piasiietts c ° ais < ? > -

Oxford Limestone Coals, .

Dunstone Coals.
Blackhill Seam
Hardy Seam.
.Bulman Seam
(Three-Quarter Seam.

Lowest Seam (?) Lewis Burn Coals (?).. J Cooper Eye Coal.

(.Wester Coal.

Besides the Limestones and the Coals, to which, by reason of
their importance, we have devoted considerable space, there are
.still to be noted the much thicker Sandstones and Grits which,
with the shales, make up the rest of the great Bernician series.
As might be expected from what has been already said, they are
by no means constant over great distances,, and in a sketch of
this kind a detailed account or list of beds of sandstone would be
obviously out of place. There are, however, three great groups
of grits which may be traced with ease over a large proportion of
the County, and which, as they contribute very strongly to the-
'•fleading features of its scenery, must not be passed over. These;
are: —

$*,The Inghoe Grits. Lying high up in the series, between the-
Felltop and the Little Limestone, and attain-
ing : their greatest thickness, as has been explained before, in th&

Geology of Northumberland. 41

Inghoe district, between the Tyne and Wansbeck. They it is
that form the bold coarse-sandstone hills, sloping with the dip
towards the former river, on its North bank, between Corbridge
and Fourstones, and again between Bardon Mills and Haltwhistle.
Occasionally interbedded among the grits are fine-grained, and
sometimes flaggy, Sandstones, in places rich with the casts of
marine shells. The bands of shale which occur in some number
are quite subordinate to the arenaceous beds.

To the South of the Tyne the " thick-grit " character of this
series merges into that which belongs to it in the Alston district,,
where it is chiefly marked by two well-known beds, the Whet-
stone Sill, a fine-grained, and " Pattison's Sill," a tough sand-
stone.

2. The Simonside Grits. This thick series of grits was first
described by Mr. Topley, F.G.S.* They
' form the very conspicuous Simonside Hills, which rise to a height
of nearly 1,600 feet on the South side of the Coquet, near Rothbury.
This is quite their greatest development, as they decline in thick-
ness and feature-making power both to the North and to the South
of that point. To them belong the range of crags running from
Rothbury to Callalee on the one hand, and those from Simonside,,
on the East side of Billsmoor Park, to Hartside Pike near East
Woodburn, and the Wanney Crags just South of the Wansbeck
Valley Railway. Thence across North Tynedale, and ranging
North of and parallel to the line of the Roman Wall, their crag-
like character is kept up under very numerous names. But the
shales and limestones between the individual grits assume a
greater importance to the detriment of the grit-like nature of the
group as such. Indeed, names like those which are here adopted
to distinguish the grit ranges must only be regarded as convenient
for special districts. They do not correspond with definite
natural divisions, holding good over considerable distances, and
the constant thickening and thinning of the grits themselves,,
which may be likened to a kind of Cyclopean false-bedding,
prevent the tracing of the component members of each group
separately

1. The Harbottle Grits. This group is apparently only clearly
defined in the region whence its name
has been taken. There (around Harbottle, on the Upper Coquet,)-
we have a mass of grits comparable in thickness, lithological
characters, and in the constantly varying thickness of the beds
of which it is formed, with the Simonside grits. Their upper
limit is tolerably well defined by means of the lowest of a set

* See Geological Chapter in the " Guide to Rothbury and Upper Coquetdale,'"
Alnwick, 1873.

42 Outlines of the

of thick blue limestones of the ordinary Bernician type crossing
from Redewater into Coquetdale, on the high moors between
Grasslees and Horsley or Rochester. The base-line is still better
defined in this locality, as the Grits on the South side of the
Coquet between Holystone and Linnsheeles immediately overlie
thin bedded shales and cement stones of obvious Tuedian aspect.
The Harbottle Grits are thick in this, the typical tract, where
they form the Beacon and the Drake' Stone Hills, but become
thicker still as they spread out to the West and South- West,
forming the great sandstone crags which stand out like the tiers
of vast amphitheatres at the head of Rede and North Tyne.
To this group must be referred the Countess, Ellis, and Christen-
bury (?) Crags, and also the Peel, Deadwater, and the greater
part of the Carter Fells.

This great bottom Bernician group enters the County from
Cumberland, near the head of the Irthing, and from Scotland,
along the Liddellwater, and thence to the Coquet its presence is
made splendidly manifest in some of wildest mountain scenery
to be found along the border. Seldom falling below the iooo feet
•contour-line, and frequently approaching that of 2000 feet, it rises
far above boulder-clay and drift, with a very low and rolling
dip which helps to a great degree to multiply the extent of its
craggy outcrops.

These beds, although the lowest in the Carboniferous Lime-
stone series, where, too, this series is of a great and almost
abnormal thickness, have sometimes been, like some others already
referred to, regarded as Millstone Grit — chiefly, it is presumed,
because some beds in it, as, for instance, that to which the great
semi-boulder known as the Drake Stone belongs, have been
nsed for the manufacture of Millstones ! No better proof could
be found of the misleading tendencies of lithological names
when applied to stratigraphical groups.

To the North of the Coquet the characters of the Harbottle
Grits are, to all appearance, gone. Whether the detailed working
out of the beds, now proceeding in that part of the County, will
•explain this, I know not, but that a very material change does
take place is very evident. Either a bodily thinning out occurs
here on a very large scale, or the nature of the beds change, as
there appears to be no reason to suspect a fault or faults so great
as to produce the effects observable. The "almost sudden
■thinning out" theory seems the most probable, as it would
account, not only for the state of things in the Northernmost part
of the County where no group on such a scale as this one is to be
found, but also for a curious and otherwise unexplained series of
very high dips which are to be found in the adjoining and over-
lying Rothbury Grits.

Geology of Northumberland. 43

As will be seen in the chapter devoted to the lowest Carboni-
ferous or Tuedian Beds, the Harbottle Grits may come to be
claimed — as indeed they have been already— as the upper mem-
bers of that Series.

CHAPTER IX,

THE TUEDIAN BEDS.

Under this name are grouped those lowest Carboniferous beds
which in Scotland generally go by the name of "Calciferous
Sandstones" — a name given them by Maclaren in 1839. Pro-
fessor A. Geikie, F.R.S., has shown that the lower portions of
these rocks merge insensibly into the upper part of the Old Red
Sandstone Series. In Northumberland their upper limit is
equally indefinite, the higher beds of ftiev division dove-tailing
into the lower beds of that next above (fhefBernician). No hard
and fast line can therefore be drawn either "at the base or at the
top of the Tuedian Series here, but notwithstanding this the beds
of that division have most of them a distinct character of their
own. The Sandstones of which they consist to a considerable
exterlt are not unlike those of the Bernician except towards the
base of the series where they generally contain rolled fragments
of Cheviot porphyrites, these fragments increasing in size as we
get closer to the parent mass, and being accompanied by a
deepening brownish-red tinge. This is well seen at Biddlestone
where, in the Burn running behind the Hall, an excellent section
showing the change from the mere coarse yellow sandstone to
a dark-coloured conglomerate is very marked. Still better can
this be studied in the fine section at Roddam Dene, where the
Porphyritic conglomerates are splendidly exposed. Smaller and
less clear sections showing this bottom character of the series
are to be found at other localities on the- flanks of the Cheviots,
and in all cases these coarse reddish rocks have been looked
upon as Upper Old Red Conglomerate. It seems, however, much
more philosophical to hesitate before drawing a line between
these red rocks and a series which is — as the recognized Tuedians
undoubtedly are — in every respect simply an undisturbed continu-
ation of them. The entire mass is therefore here called Tuedian.
Adopting this course then, the lower limit of the Tuedians in this
county is defined by the outline of the Cheviot rocks which had
long been erupted and stood as an island in the lowest Carboni-
ferous or Upper Old Red Sandstone Sea. The upper limit is not

44 Outlines of the

so easily traced — indeed it cannot in many cases be traced at alL
Convenience and expediency have, however, determined the
choice of certain beds at various points as denning the top of the
series, but it must be borne in mind that the line thus obtained is
purely arbitrary, and that a true boundary separating Tuedian
from Bernician rocks would not keep to any one horizon, but
would be represented by a zig-zag, the accurate delineation of
which would demand a perfectly accurate knowledge of the
minor details of the beds such as there are no means of obtaining
at present. In practice the Tuedian rocks are said to begin
(proceeding downwards) where the limestones of the Bernician
Series lose their usual Carboniferous Limestone type, where they
become -cream-coloured, hard, unfossiliferous, and magnesian,
and where they assume the character of cement stones.

To the North of Berwick, the lowest accepted Bernician lime-
stone is the Dun limestone, well-known throughout the Northern
part of Northumberland, but only with great reserve to be
correlated with a bed of the same name in the Upper North Tyne
district. This is the limestone which crops out for some miles
along the coast at Lamberton. Though thin, it is extremely rich
in the ordinary fossils of the Limestone Series. , This has been
taken by the Scotch Survey, North 1 of Berwick, and by Mr. E. F.
Boyd, South of the Tweed, as the line separating Bernician from
Tuedian, and for that region it may well be adopted here.* But
in the upper .Coquet district, where the Tuedians are extremely
well developed, no such limestone can be traced, and the Har-
bottle Grits, already described, are so thoroughly Bernician in
facies, and so well divided stratigraphically from the Tuedians,
that there the base of this great sandstone series forms quite the
most convenient boundary line. Now, there is little doubt that
the horizon of the Lamberton or Dun Limestone is above the
Harbottle Grits, so that the merely expedient and artificial char-
acter of the boundaries thus arrived at is shown, at once. The.
truth is, that no line should be drawn at all, except as the merest
matter of convenience.

An awkward result of the above-described state of things is
this; The Harbottle Grits and the great grit series to the West
of Chillingham are perhaps the same ; at any rate, they are
not far separated in age. In both these deposits the remains-
have been found of a shell, which is characteristic of the Yellow
Sandstone. Series (= Tuedian) of Ireland, the Anodonta, Jukesii*
Hitherto, this shell has not been found elsewhere in England.}

* The Rev. W. Howchin, F.G.S., of Haltwhistle, has kindly searched some wash-
ings of this interesting' bed for me, and has framed a valuable list of the microzoa
contained in them. (See list of fossils in the last chapter.)

t See Lebour's " Catalogue of the Hutton Collection," p. 123. Also R. Howse„
Nat. Hist. Trans. Nortuumbd. & Durham, Vol. vii., Part i„ p. 173.

Geology of Northumberland. 45

Had the line we have taken been anything but confessedly an
artificial one we should have been compelled to explain the
occurrence of this eminently Lowest Carboniferous fossil, both
above and below that line ; but as it is, there need be no real
difficulty about the matter, A more or less broad margin must
be 'allowed on either side of the line — true passage beds in
fact — which may be said to belong, and do actually belong, to
both Bernician and Tuedian. The discovery of Anodonta Jukesii
in the lowest Bernician does not affect its Tuedian — in this case,
Upper Tuedian— character.

The cement stones, as all the Tuedian limestones are more
or less, are very frequent in the series, but they do not appear to
be at all continuous, although tolerably thick in places.

They can be well studied in Upper Coquetdale, where (as at
Alwinton, Biddlestone, etc.), they have at times been burned
for agricultural purposes, although they are not very well suited
for the purpose. No fossils have, to my knowledge, been found
in these calcareous beds. At Hetchester, near Hepple, on the
Coquet, several beds of limestone are worked, the exact position
of which is doubtful. There their character is entirely Tuedian,
and they are peculiar in lithological structure. They are all
minutely oolitic, that is to say, composed of small round or oval
many-coated concretions of a more or less siliceous nature, and.
they are exceedingly hard.

Besides the limestones, the shales and sandy clays of the
Tuedians are decidedly characteristic. The former are very
•commonly purple, and the latter greenish, thick, occasionally
. marly, and full of hard amorphous siliceous concretions ; they
are well-shown about Holystone and Sharperton. Some small
ill-shapen Brachiopods, belonging apparently to f he genus A thyris,
and some large but very imperfect specimens of Nautilus, have
been found in the Shales at the Barrow Scroggs, in the Upper
Coquet. So far as I am aware, these are the only marine fossils
yet found in the Tuedians of Northumberland. The Sandstones
abound in Sigillarian and Lepidodendroid remains, with a few
Calamites.. The Genus Ulodendron appears to be especially
plentiful in these beds.

The name Tuedian was' proposed by the late Mr. George
Tate, in 1855, and after a period of neglect it bids fair now to
hecome the acknowledged title of the series.*

* See Lebour " On the Terms Bernican and Tuedian." Geol. Mag., Decade ii. r
Vol. iv. (1877.)

46 Outlines of the

CHAPTER X.

THE SILURIAN ROCKS.

In the extreme West and North-West of the County rocks of
Silurian age are known, but they afford no positive evidence
of their exact age. They consist near the head of the Redewater
of high-dipping and occasionally contorted greyish, greenish, and
purple shales, or clay-slate, through which run narrow dykes df
compact Dyorite. No fossils ihave up to the present time been
found in these beds, which occur merely as an inlier of very
limited extent upon which the lower beds' of the Carboniferous
Series rest. They are well seen in the road-cuttings along the
Chevy Chase Road to Scotland, at and around the inn at Whitelee,
and in the beds and banks of the Rede and the Whitelee Burn,
but their area is very small. It may be noted that this mode of
occurrence of the older rocks beneath the Carboniferous Series
is, in most respects, similar to that of the Silurian strata in Tees-
dale, except that, in Redewater, there is no evidence of, and no
necessity for, the presence of any dislocation to account for
them.

The age of this small uncovered patch of Silurian rocks is, of
course, doubtful, but they may be referred, without much hesita-
tion, to the Riccarton Series.

The, only other Northumbrian locality known to us where
rocks of this character occur is among the Cheviots in the Upper
Coquet. Here, between Philip and Makendon,* the Porphyrites
which form the main mass of the range are seen, in a beautifully
clear section, abutting against grits of Silurian age or " greywacke."
The latter are bent up on end by the intrusion of the former, thus
giving a limit of age to that event, as stated elsewhere (p. 3). '

Geology of Northumberland. 47-

CHAPTER XI.

IGNEOUS ROCKS \ DYKES.

The igneous rocks of Northumberland are of many kinds, but
they can conveniently be grouped under three heads, viz. : —

1. Basaltic Dykes, probably of Tertiary age.

2. Sheets and bosses, of post-Carboniferous, but probably
Pre-Triassic age.

3. Porphyrites, etc., of post-Silurian, but pre-Carboniferous.
age.

1. Dykes. — These, with one or two rare exceptions, are
remarkably uniform in lithological composition. , They are, as a
rule, clqse-grained Basalts, deep blue when freshly-broken, with
strong conchoidal fracture, weathering to brown and red, and
very commonly into spheroidal balls. It would not answer any
useful purpose to enumerate all the dykes known, but a few of
the more remarkable must be mentioned. The bearings of the
dykes are many, but a very large majority run in two main direc-
tions, one set being East and West or South-East and North-
West ; and the other, roughly, North-East and South-West. The
former appear to belong to the same category as the numerous
Tertiary Dykes which follow parallel courses across the South of
Scotland, one of them, indeed, the Acklington dyke, being doubt-
less merely the South-Easterly continuation of one of these
Scottish dykes. The reasons for considering the latter as of
Tertiary age have been worked out with great success by Prof.
Geikie, Mr. Jack, and others, and there seems to be none to urge
against their application to some (and, by analogy, to all) of
those South of the Tweed. The supposed Triassic age of some of :
the Northumbrian Dykes requires proof.

The dykes vary greatly in width, that at Holy Island being
the thickest on the whole, although others sometimes attain,
locally, an equal breadth.

Most of the dykes are single so far as they are known to me,
but a few are proved to split up into branches, whilst others are
suspected of doing so.

In a few cases the dykes are seen to overflow laterally. The
Acklington dyke, for instance, as it approaches the Cheviot
Porphyritic mass, through which it cuts, spreads irregularly over
the beds of Tuedian age in which it is encased. This is very

48 Outlines of the

beautifully seen along its course from a little to the South- West
-of Biddlestone to the banks of the Alwin, at Clennell. At Shil-
bottle, two " beds " or " sheets " of whin are known which may
be lateral dyke-overflows of a similar character, but which have
also been referred to the Whin Sill. Mr. I. L. Bell, M.P., F.R.S.,
has published a very interesting paper on the composition of the
basalt of the overflowing limbs of other dykes near their junction
with the surrounding sedimentary rocks.* '

Some of these dykes, which are well-known through having
been met with in underground workings, do not reach the surface
at all, and many which are seen " to the day " do not continue
at so high a level for any distance. In some rare cases the actual
natural top or vertical dying out of a dyke can be seen, as on the
Coast a little to the South of Seaton Sluice. Here, near a spring
on the beach, a dyke, at least 12 feet in width where it rises at
the foot of the cliff,' is finely shown ending off in two tongues of
basalt, the longest of which, after curving amongst disturbed and
contorted shale, dies out about 11 feet from the ground beneath
a bed of Sandstone, which it had not the force to break through.
The fault along which this dyke was injected" is well seen con-
tinuing its. upward course. A more instructive section it would
be difficult to find.

The dyke which crosses, the Wansbeck a few yards below the
Viaduct of the North Eastern Railway is much more largely
crystalline and blacker in colour than is usual. The Acklington
Dyke seems to be usually more or less vesicular and amygda-
loidal, a character which does not appear to belong in any marked
degree to other Northumbrian dykes. The Tynemouth Dyke,
where it is seen by the side of the pier in the Priory cliff, has
always been described as consisting of greenstone, and certainly
its appearance at that point is different from that of the ordinary
dykes. It was formerly only known here, where it is seen to cut
through yellow sandstone ; its relation to the Magnesian Lime-
stone being unknown. Recently, Mr. FavelL F.G.S., has detected
the prolongation of this' dyke to the West near Biddy Mill, and
the specimens which I have seen from that locality do not differ
from some taken from the common basaltic dykes. Winch remarks
that this whin is very like that of Coley-Hill.

Of the other dykes the following are some of the more
important : —

A. — East and West Series.

The Hebburn Dyke, emerging from beneath the Magnesian
Limestone near Cleadon, runs by Hedworth and Hebburn,
■crosses the Tyne and enters Northumberland at Walker, thence

* Proc. Roy. Soc. 1875, Vol. xxiii., p. 543.

Geology of Northumberland. 49

by Byker through Newcastle, along the Southern margin' of the
Town Moor as far as Slatyford, where it meets the Ninety-
Fathom Dyke. For a space it no longer reaches the surface, but
re-appears in it original direction as the well-known Coley-Hill
Dyke, between Whorlton and Dewley, near to which place it is
finally lost sight of. This dyke is confined to the Coal-Measures,
and the fact that it does not penetrate the Magnesian Limestone
at Cleadon has been made use of as an argument to establish its
pre-Permian age. This evidence is, however, purely negative,
and standing alone, as it does, cannot be considered of much
weight. 1

The Cramlington, Bedlingtcm, and Lower Wansbeck Dykes com-
prise some half-dozen parallel lines of intrusion, which are
marked by branches of an unusual character. They will be
found described in detail in the Survey Memoir on sheets 105
North- West and North-East of the one-inch geological maps.

The Acklington Dyke, which has already been mentioned,
stretches across the entire width of the County from the Coast
at Bondicar, near Acklington, cutting through Coal-Measures,
Millstone Grit, the whole of the Bernicians, the Tuedians, and
Cheviot porphyries. As stated before, it runs on for many miles
across the South of Scotland. It is well seen at numberless
places along its course, notably at Debdon, Cartington Castle,
Clennell (where it overflows laterally), and the road along the
Coquet near Shillmoor. At Acklington it is 30 feet wide.

The Trobe's Dene Dyke appears only underground, in the
eastern part of the Shilbbttle Colliery, running nearly from East
to West.* It is from this dyke that the lateral overflows of
basalt mentioned above in connexion with this locality are
supposed to proceed.

The Beadnell Dyke, well seen on the Coast at the place of that
name, is " traceable as far as Newnham Station " (Tate).

The Holy Island or Lindisfarne Dyke, the last of the more
important dykes belonging to the East and West series, is thus
described by Mr. Tate : — " It is one of the largest in the County (
and indeed has been erroneously described as part of the Whin
Sill, to which it has some resemblance, as it rises in Lindisfarne
or Holy Island in high craggy hills of columnar basalt. It crosses
the Southern part of the Island nearly from West to East, and is
seen two miles seaward forming the Plough and Goldstone rocks,
on which the " Pegasus " was wrecked. The Castle crowns a
high craggy basaltic hill, and on the West side of the Island the
dyke is exposed in a high cliff, and is there izo feet wide, with a
slope 85° Southward ; large blocks of limestone, highly metamor-

* G. Tate, F.G.S., Proc. Berwickshire Nat. Club. (1863), p. hi.

50 Outlines of the

phosed, are enveloped in the basalt; and the strata, broken;
through, have been relatively altered in position ; those on the
South side having been considerably upcast. A calcareous
shale, very fossiliferous, and a limestone beneath it abut against
the dyke and are metamorphosed ; and near to the Castle a vein of
basalt penetrates the shale. This dyke is seen near Fenham on
the mainland, and further Westward near Kyloe Church, where
its width is from 20 to 60 feet, for it widens as it descends; in one
part it is covered by shattered beds of shale. It cuts through
the Lowick Coal-beds, and is traceable further Westward to
Leitham, the whole ascertained course being about 14 miles."*

Many small dykes known at various places in the West and
centre of the County, in the Bernician area (as at Hareshaw,
Wark's Burn, etc.), belong to the same series as those above-
named (by their direction), but, as will be presently. seen, the
chief dykes of this region belong to the second category, viz. : —

B. — North-East and South- West Series.

The Brunton Dyke, known in West Allendale, near Whitfield,
crosses the South Tyne first to the West of Haydon Bridge, then
between that little town and Wharnley, and lastly to the East of
the latter place ; it crosses the North Tyne near Wall, is well
exposed by St. Oswald's Chapel, near Brunton, and is last seen
in the Bingfield Burn. on the East side of the Watling Street.
Two small dykes run close to and parallel to this one near its
easternmost extremity. Of these, one is well seen in the Bingfield
Burn, and the other in the bed of the Pont, where that little
stream crosses the Watling Street.

The Bavington Dyke begins almost due North of the spot
where the last dyke ends, and is quite parallel to it in direction.
It is of great but irregular thickness where it is first seen, just
South of the Bavington Hall grounds, so much so that it might
be taken, at first sight, for the Southern continuation of the'
Eastern branch of the Whin Sill, but it very gradually thins away
in its North-Easterly course to a yard or less. It is well shown
at Bolam in the Park, and is visible in the bed of the Font below
the Coal-House Quarries.

- The Lewis Burn or Trough-End Dyke is first seen in the
County in Short Cleugh, a little valley formed by a tributary of
the Lewis Burn ; thence good exposures are frequent, as in the
railway cutting East of the Belling, crossing the Tarret Burn at
High Green, in the field just North of the Troughend Hall, in the
' Elsdon Burn between Elsdon and High Carrick, on the road from
Elsdon to Billsmoor, and lastly (and perhaps best of all), in a

* Loc. cit., p. 21P.

Geology of Northumberland. 5 1

deep Cleugh in the high hills between Billsmoor Park and Darden
Lough, whence it has been traced to the South of Tosson, as
I am informed, by Mr. Topley. This dyke is, sometimes, very
inappropriately called The Falstone Dyke.

The Black Bum Dykes are two or three in number, and occur
exactly parallel to and within a short distance of the last dyke to
the North. They are well seen in the Black Burn, which runs
into Tarret Burn, but have not yet been traced any distance.

The Plashetts Dyke (already referred to at p. 6) is of uncertain
direction, although in a general way it may claim to find a place
in this series. It forms the Eastern boundary of the Plashetts
Coal-workings and is not seen at the surface.

The Boubner Dyke t which, according to Tate, is only seen on
the coast, is 100 feet wide.

The Hampeth Dyke, 150 feet wide, is seen in Hampeth Burn,
South-West of Shilbottle.

The Howick Dyke, belonging to this series, is interesting
because of its nearness to the Whin Sill, with which, however,
it cannot be actually connected. It is only seen on the coast.

The Cornhill Dyke, cutting for seven miles through Tuedian
and Bernician beds, from half-a-mile below Coldstream to
Milkington, Heaton Mill, and Mattalees, seems to belong to these
dykes.

Many of the dykes above described have altered and baked
the deposits through which they cut, but their effects are by
no means constant, coal being sometimes completely coked, and
sometimes but very slightly, if at all, affected by contact with
them. Most of the dykes in the Coal-field are remarkable
for the coking which they have produced, as, for instance, the;
Hebburn dyke.

CHAPTER XII.

Igneous Rocks Continued: The Great Whin Sill.

This is the name given to a sheet of Dolerite, the outcrop of
which stretches across Northumberland from Greenhead to a few
miles South of Berwick, and which probably underlies almost the
whole of the Southern and Eastern portions of the County. Of
undoubted igneous origin, this flow of Basalt has yet given rise to-
much contention among Geologists, some arguing that it was a
regularly interbedded trap, the mineralogical character of which
alone distinguished it from the beds above and below, and others,
with — as it has since been proved — more reason, that it was a

5? Outlines of the

purely intrusive mass injected just as the ordinary dykes are,
long after the deposition of the rocks amongst which it lies.

The evidence relied on by the former party was chiefly that
in the mining district of Alston Moor, and the South Tyne, the
Whin Sill did appear to he regularly at one horizon. That on
the other side, which appears to Be perfectly unassailable, being
found in the altered, or metamorphosed, character of the rocks
above the Whin Sill, especially when they consist of shales, and
in the fact that the Whin does not lie at one uniform level
amongst the sedimentary strata, but frequently comes up in
bosses, cutting through the rocks, and shifting its relative position
amongst them to the extent of 1,000 feet or more in short
distances.*

The importance attached to a settlement of this question of
■ the intrusion of the Whin Sill is due, to some extent, to the fact
that the late Professor Phillips relied upon that basaltic sheet as
a boundary between his two great divisions of the Carboniferous
Limestone Series, the Yoredale Rocks and the Scaur Limestones.
As it is now shown that it shifts its position, being sometimes
found below, but more often above the supposed base-line of the
Yoredale Beds, its value as a line of boundary is entirely lost.-}-

The Whin Sill is wholly comprised within the Bernician
Series in Northumberland, and chiefly within its upper portion.

On entering the County the Whin is, for a space, found lying
above the "Great Limestone," some 700 or 800 feet above its Alston
horizon, but returns to its more usual position before long, about
which, with fluctuations above and below, within about 300
feet, it keeps for many miles, crossing the North Tyne, near to
which river it assumes the North-Easterly trend followed by all
the beds of the district. At Low Teppermoor it is seen at about
its lowest position in this portion of its course ; and here also a
surface break (of which there are several along the crop of the
sheet) is very well shown. Thence it continues to the North-
East, pretty much along the same horizon, till it reaches Swin-
burne Mill, where another break occurs, accbmpanied by a rise of
a few fathoms to the next higher bed of Limestone. From this
point the Whin Sill runs almost due North, in a fine line of
semi-columnar crags, as far as Knowes Gate, where it crosses the
Wansbeck Valley Railway. In this distance it is twice inter-
rupted by surface breaks unattended with change of horizon — at
Sweethope and the Berry Hills. A little to the North of the
line this long basaltic range terminates abruptly, re-appearing at

* See Topley and Lebour " On the Whin Sill in Northumberland." Brit. Assoc.
Report for 1873, Part 2, p. 92.

t Lebour " On the Limits of the Yoredale Series in the North of England."
Geological Magazine, Decade ii., Vol. ii. (1875), p. 539

Geology of Northumberland. 53

intervals through a drift-covered country., Parallel, to this great
ridge, however, and not quite a mile to the East of it (three beds
of limestone with their associated sandstones and shales inter-
vening), is another equally thick- (and in places even thicker)
but much more regular sheet of Dolerite, which may be looked upon
as a branch of the Whin Sill, and which runs from Homilton, near
Bavington, to Elf-Hills, to the North-East of Kirk-Whelpington.
This Eastern sheet is much more subject to breaks than the main
or Westerly one, and towards its northern extremity comes to
the surface usually not as a continuous bed, but in bosses or
isolated masses of greater or lesser size.

About half-a-mile to the North of the village of Chollerton
there is a patch of basalt quarried in a small plantation by the
road-side which is probably a separate boss belonging to the
branch of the Whin Sill just mentioned. This is rendered more
probable by the fact that a thin bed of basalt (rather light-
coloured and very fine-grained) is seen in the bed of the North
Tyne a little below Haughton Castle. This thin bed may be the
Southernmost exposure of the Eastern Whin Sill.

At Elf-Hills Quarry, where the Four-fathom Limestone was
until lately wrought, the Whin overlies and breaks through the
limestone, but a more interesting case of intrusion was observed
here by Sir- Walter C. Trevelyan a few years back, when a thin
layer of fine-grained Whin underlying the limestone was seen
sending up strings of trap through the overlying limestone beds.
At the extremity of these shoots of Whinstone a singular black
earthy substance was noticed, the like of which has since been
detected by Mr. David Burns, F.G.S., of H.M. Geological Survey,
elsewhere at the point of junction between Whin and Limestone.*
On partially analysing a portion of this stuff, Mr. J. T. Dunn,
B.Sc, of the Newcastle College of Physical Science, ascertained
that it contained as much as 17 percent, of combustible and volatile
matter — probably free Carbon. This, taken in conjunction with the
fact that the Whin' Sill in its irruption undoubtedly absorbed ,
portions of the beds through which it poured, tends to confirm
certain theories advocated by Mr. Burns in the paper referred to.
At Elf-Hills too, pieces of shale some feet in length may be seen
caught up and enclosed in the basalt.

To the North of Elf-Hills there is a broad flat tract of drift-
covered land, beyond which the Whin is again seen (at Harting-
ton and Gallow Hill) lying in the same position, i.e., between the
Great and Four-Fathom Limestones. Again there is a broad
drift-covered valley beyond which the Whin is seen at Dyke-
Head. It here seems to come up as a great boss, and lies lower

* D. Burns " On the Intrusion of the Whin Sill." Trans. N. Engl. Jnst. Min. and
Mechan. Engineers, Vol. xxvii. (1878).

54 Outlines of the

in the series* A bore-hole put down on the South side of
Greenleighton Farm found the Whin just below the Six-yard
.Limestone.*

In Fallowlees Burn the Whip lies about ioo feet below the -
position last mentioned. From this place it can be traced for
about a mile to the North, apparently keeping at the same
horizon.

At Ward's Hill, near Forest Burn, the Whin lies above the
Great Limestone. It is not seen again until about four or five
miles South of Alnwick. Thence it can be traced Northwards, past
Rugley, nearly to Alnwick, lying about ioo feet, or rather more,
above the Hobberlaw Limestone, which is the lowest good
and thick limestone in the district. Here, too, the Whin has its
lowest known position, as it lies nearly i,ooofeet below the Great
Limestone. The beds immediately above the Whin are seen in a
stream South-east of St. Margaret's Farm, where they are much
altered.-)

From this point the course of the Whin Sill has been well
described by the late Messrs. W. Hutton and G. Tate, and by
Mr. E. F. Boyd. I

From Ratcheugh Northwards to Dunstanburgh the Whin
lies in beds and bosses at various horizons. • At the former place
it is below the Eight-yard Limestone, and the Whin occurs in
three separate sheets or flows, separated from each other by
altered shale and limestone. At Peppermoor, according to Mr.
Tate, there are indications of two intrusions. At Dunstanburgh
the basalt forms the fine sea-cliff surmounted by the ruined Castle
and overlies the Great Limestone. Thence by Spittleford and
Embleton, at or about the same horizon, to St. Mary's Haven and
Old Newton. Between Newton North Farm, on the South side
of Beadnell Bay and the Farne Islands, the Whin Sill is nowhere
to be seen. The Islands are, however, entirely formed of it,
except where some considerable patches of altered shales, lime-
stones, and sandstone occur, apparently enveloped in the trap.
Similar cases of enclosed sedimentary rocks are well seen on the
coast just North of Bamburgh Castle, which, like Dunstanburgh,
stands on a cliff of Whin 'Silt columns. § In this portion of the

* This is the Three-yard Limestone of Teesdale.

+ Most of the above description is taken from Topley and Lebour's paper " On
the intrusive character of the Whin Sill in Northumberland," read before the
Geological Society of London on December the 6th, 1876, and published in the
Quarterly Journal of the Society, Vol. xxxiii. (1877), p. 406.

t W. Hutton in Trans. Nat. Hist. Soo. Northumberland, etc., Vol. ii., p. 187 (183a).
G. Tate in Proc. Berwickshire Nat. Club. Vol. vi., p. 197.
E. F. Boyd in Trans. N. Engl. Inst. Min. & Mechan. Eng. Vol. ix., p. 185 (1861).

i See Sir W. C. Trevelyan, Mem. of the Wernerian Society, VoL iv. (1823),
p. 253, and Lebour and Fryar " On the Harkess Rocks near Bamburgh." Trans.
N. Engl. Inst. Min. and Mechan. Engineers, Vol. xxvi. (1877).

Geology of Northumberland. 55

mainland the Whin covers a large extent of country and is very
well seen indeed both along the sea-coast and inland towards
Belford, the celebrated Spindlestone Crags belonging to it.
Thence, with important breaks partly due to large faults, the
basaltic range runs to the Kyloe Crags by Middleton and Knucton.

Throughout this long serpentine course the Great Whin Sill,
although it shifts its horizon continually, yet follows in a general
way the strike of the sedimentary beds, so that, before, the
Geology of the country was worked out in any detail, there
certainly was a primd facie likelihood of its being a truly inter-
bedded sheet. Its thickness varies very greatly, being scarcely
20 feet in places and 150 feet in others., On an average it is from
about 80 to 100 feet thick.

That the Whin Sill has been injected between the strata
after their deposition and consolidation is now sufficiently
•evident.

" The exact geological date at which the intrusion took plaqe
cannot be determined. Northumberland offers no conclusive
evidence on the subject ; but, so far as the evidence in this and
other districts goes, it seems probable that the intrusion took
place at the close of the Carboniferious period."*

Speaking lithologically, the Whin Sill is thus described by Mr.
S. Allport : — " A specimen of it from Ward's Hill, near Rothbury,
is a well-crystallized greyish black basalt containing the usual
constituents ; the plagioclase is distinctly striated ; the augite
occurs here and there in twin crystals ; and there are a few serpen-
tinous pseudomorphs of olivine. Grains of magnetite are thickly
scattered through it. A dolerite from Elf Hills, in Northumber-
land, is not so well crystallised as the preceding, and is more
altered ; the augite is partially converted into a grey substance ;
there is some disseminated chlorite ; and an altered glass fills
■the spaces between the, constituents.}

CHAPTER XIII.

Igneous Rocks continued: The Cheviots.

The Cheviots proper are as well-defined geologically as they are
topographically. No contrast can well be greater than that
presented by the high green rounded contours of this " massif,"
and the rugged craggy heather-clad outlines of the Carboniferous

* Topley and Lebour, loc. cit., p. 431.
t Quarterly Journal of the Geol. Society, Vol. xxx. (1874), p. 55?.

56 Outlines of the

rocks which skirt along their base. Nowhere can this be better
seen than from some of the crags of the Harbottle Grits in Upper
Coquetdale. Strikingly homogeneous are the features of the
Cheviots; the deep valleys of the range, its steep slopes, its
hag-Covered sub-conical tops — all are alike from Wooler to
* Clennell. To the Geologist's eye, the igneous origin of these
hills is evident at a distance, and igneous the entire mass
undoubtedly is, but very numerous are the varieties of igneous
rocks of which that mass is composed. The area covered by
these rocks in this County is about 200 square miles, and the
most generalized hst of the rocks found in large masses within
this region gives the following varieties : —

1. Granite, only occasionally present, but well-shown in places*
as in the hills below " Cheviot," about the head of the Breamish.

2. Syenite, abundant, as at Yevering, " Cheviot," Blindburn,
etc. This syenite passes into the granite mentioned above.

3. Porphyrite, comprises by far the most abundant varieties of
the Cheviot rocks. Red Porphyrite of a fine deep salmon-red
colour is the commonest of all. It is well shown at Biddlestone,
for instance, a little to the East of the Hall, where it-is quarried
and where the joint-faces are marked with very beautiful dendrites.
This red rock passes insensibly into other varieties of the same
group of greyish and brownish colours, and these by degrees
occasionally lose their original character and become amygda-
loidal, the cavities being filled with chalcedony. Fine agates can
sometimes be found in sit4 in rocks of this description close to
the Ridlees Farm-house in Upper Coquetdale, and good rounded
specimens lie among the gravels of Upper Redewater, about Rams-
hope, and of the Coquet above Rothbury.

4. Doleritic Rocks of dark colour are only less frequent than
the Porphyrites, and are very distinguishable from them when in
their typical state, but in many cases it is impossible to draw any
line between the two groups of rocks, so gradual appears to be the
change from one -to the other. At times, again, these blackish
rocks appear sharply defined, as if by intrusion, from the others.
In the solitary case (that of the Acklington dyke) in which a
whin dyke is, seen cutting through the Cheviot rocks, the nature
of the stone is very distinct from that of these Dolerites, although
probably they would both be of much the same composition. '

The above are the three chief constituent groups of the
Cheviot rocks, but it may be said that from a petrographical
point of view the Cheviots are virgin ground yet to be broken.
Geologically speaking, much interest attaches to the arrangement
of these rocks apart from their composition, and to their age.

Geology of Northumberland. 57

Respecting the former point a singular fact is noticeable in
many parts of the Cheviots, namely, the marked bedded
appearance of some of these igneous ropks. At certain places
this appearance of bedding and regular dip is so distinct as to
lead one to doubt Whether the rocks be not highly metamorphic
and not truly igneous. Apparent dips of this kind can some-
times be traced consistently for miles, but at the same time it
must be admitted that more usually the self-same rocks are
wholly devoid of bedding-like planes, and of anything approach-
ing to uniform dip. Almost as much, however, remains to be
known respecting the structure, as .regarding the lithological
constitution of the Cheviots. • The pseudo-dip and bedding can
be seen to perfection on the banks of the Ridlees Burn, where a
most interesting section, to be presently described, is to be seen.

The age of the Cheviot rocks is probably not the same for the
various members of the group. It seems highly probable, for
instance, that some of the Doleritic masses are of later age than the
Porphyrites, and I would here throw out the suggestion that the
detached minor bosses of trap seen piercing through the lowest
Carboniferous rocks near the summit of the Carter Fell road are
to be assigned to this era in the history of these eruptive rocks.
How far the Syenites, with their occasional Granite,' may be
separated in age from the Porphyrites I am not in a position to
say, but if I am right in the suggestion just thrown out, there would
be at least three periods of intrusion represented in the Cheviot
mass. An early one (that of the Porphyrites), posterior to the
Makendon Silurian rocks, but prior to the Basement beds of the
Tuedians; a second one (that of the old Dolerites), in Carboni-
ferous times probably; and a third (e.g. the Ackhngton dyke),
which was contemporaneous with that of the East and West Whin
dykes. These conclusions are based on the following facts : —

1. The Silurian beds at Makendon are, wherever they are
seen in contact with the Cheviot rocks, tilted up by the latter.

2. The lowest Carboniferous rocks are, where no faults are
present, as at Cottonshope Head and the Ridlees, seen to rest
on the Cheviot rocks and are perfectly undisturbed by them.

3. Isolated patches of Lower Carboniferous Sandstqne and of
Basement beds are found lying undisturbed on the flanks of the
Cheviot, as by the " Clennell Street " above Alwynton, and on
Whitelaw, East of Yevering.

.4. The Basement beds, like the higher Tuedian beds, are to a
certain extent made up of pebbles of Cheviot Porphyrite.

5. Some of the older Dolerites appear to pierce through the
porphyrites, although they do not always have that appearance.

5 8 Outlines of the

6. These Dolerites are sometimes, as up Puncherton Burn
(running into the Alwyn), seen to pass into a brecciated con-
glomerate in which blocks of rock, apparently of Lower Carboni-
ferous origin, besides others of earlier age and mixed with frag-
ments of Porphyrite, are embedded in a matrix of Dolerite.

7. The bosses of trap seen below Whitelee, by the Carter Fell
road, are quite unlike either the dykes and bosses' which are
common in the rest of the County, while they are very similar to
•the Cheviot Dolerites in the neighbourhood of which they are
found.

In " Good Words " for 1876, there is a series of articles by
Dr. James Geikie, F.R.S., on the Cheviot Hills. The chief
Geological conclusions arrived at are thus abstracted : — *

" Describes the scenery and extent of the region. The
Scottish side is the most abrupt. The age of the igneous rocks,
forming the greater part of the range, is intermediate between
that of the greywacke beds and of the red and white sandstone
(Upper Old Red Conglomerate or lowest Carboniferous), lying
unconformably upon them. These igneous rocks consist chiefly
of pprphyrites. At Hindhope the oldest of them (the Ash beds)
are to be seen. The early volcanic outbursts were submarine ;
but those at the close of the period of activity were subaerial. In
early Carboniferous times there followed another volcanic period,
to which the plugged-up vents of Ruben Law, Black Law, etc.,
belong. Describes the glacial deposits fully. The Cheviots were
covered by the ice-sheet when at its thickest, but they divided
the flow between Scotland and England."

CHAPTER XIV.

Materials for a Palaeontology of Northumberland.

For the Permian Fossils the student is referred to Mr. R.
Howse's publications in the Transactions of the Tyneside
Naturalists' Field Club,t and to Prof. King's Monograph in the
volumes of the Palseontographical Society. ' Practically it is now
all but impossible to obtain any, except those of the Marl-Slate,
at Cullercoats, during the very lowest tides.

For the Coal Measure Fossils he is referred to a " Synopsis
of Organic remains found in the Northumberland Coal Measures,"
also by Mr. Howse, published at p. 59 of the " Industrial Resources

* See " Geological Record " for 1876, (1878), p. 12.
t 1848 and 1852. Also separately printed.

Geology of Northumberland. 59

of the Tyne, Wear, and Tees" (second edition, 1864), and for
the plants to the " Catalogue of the Hutton Collection of Fossil
Plants" drawn up by myself, and published by the Mining
Institute in January, 1878.

The Gannister Beds were thought to be unfossililerous in
Northumberland and Durham until the beginning of the present
year, when I had the good fortune to discover some inthe rocks
of that age near Whittonstall, to the South of Stocksfield Station.
The list is at present a small one, viz. : —

Avicuhpectm papyraceus.
A v., sp.
•Orthoceras, sp.
Encrinite Stems.

Mr. G. C. Greenwell, F.G.S., informs me, however, that many
years ago he obtained some specimens of Goniatites and a
Microconchus from beds belonging to this series near Prudhoe.

The most interesting fossil-bearing series in the County is,
however, without exception, the Bernician, where every limestone,
many of the shales, and some of the sandstones, yield their quota
of fossils. A full list of all the species that have been found
would be out of place here, even were it not ultra vires, but the
following detached lists will, I trust, give a sufficient idea of the
richness of this fauna. In the quoted lists the nomenclature of
each author has been retained.

First will be given a list of the - fossils known to occur in the
highest or Felltop Limestone : —

Felltop Limestone, at Harlow Hill.

Lithostrotion junceum, Flem.

L. irregulare, Phill.

L. Portlocki, Bronn (very pjentiful).

Cyathophyttum, sp.

Griffithides, sp.

Poteriocrinus, 2 sp. (?).

Orthisina (StreptorhyhcusJ crenistria, Phill.

Productus giganteus, Mart.

Pr. latissimus, Sow.

Pr. semireticulatus, Mart.

Pr. costatus, Sow.

Pr. punctatus, Mart.

Pr. longispinus, Sow.

Pinna flabelliformis, Mart.

Chomatodus ductus, Ag.

Petalodus acuminatus, Ag.

60 Outlines of the

The list which follows is specialty interesting, as it represents
the results of many years' collecting in one set of beds by a good
collector living on the spot. The species enumerated were all
found by the Rev. E. Jenkinson in the Lowick quarries, which
are all in the Upper Bernician Series (= Yoredales), ranging
from the Great Limestone at Dryburn to the fifth bed of Lime-
stone below it. It is unfortunately impossible now to refer each
species to its particular bed, but the whole forms an excellent
example of the Upper Bernician fauna at one locality in North
Northumberland. The specimens are now in the Woodwardiai*
Museum at Cambridge.

List of fossils from the Lowick beds (Northumberland), from;
Sedgwick and McCoy's " British Paleozoic Fossils " : —

Discina bulla, McCoy, from red sandy bed, unique specimen.

D. nitida, Phill. sp., (—Orbicula nitida, Phill.), dark limestone.

Seminula virgoides, McCoy, rare.

Spirifera duplicicosta, Phill., rare.

Sp. ovalis, Phill. var. hemispherica, not uncommon.

Sp. trigonalis, var. a, trigonalis, Mart, sp., common.

Sp. tr., var. b, bisulcata, Sow., rare.

Sp. (Martinia) lineata, Mart, sp., very common.

Sp. (Martinia) symmetrica, Phill., very common.

Athyris ambigua, McCoy, common, of small size.

A. gregaria, McCoy, var. a, trapezoidalis, McCoy, rare.

A . paradoxa, McCoy, common.

Hemithyris acuminata, Mart, sp., var. pugnus, Sow., common.

H. pleurodon,PhiU., rare.

Camerophoria laticliva, McCoy.

Orthis connivens, Phill. sp., rare.

O. resupinata, Mart, sp., very rare.

Leptoena ( Strophomma) cylindrica, McCoy, common.

L. (Chonetes) polita, McCoy, rare.

Producta aculeata, Mart, sp., not uncommon.

Pr. corrugata, McCoy, rare.

Pr. costata, Sow., rare.

Pr. elegans, McCoy, not uncommon.

Pr.fimbriata, Sow., abundant.

Pr. Flemingi, Sow., common.

Pr. gigantea, Mart, sp., very abundant.

Pr. punctata, Mart, sp., not uncommon.

Pr. scabricula, Mart, sp., not uncommon.

Pr. striata, Fisch. sp., rare.

Producta tortilis, McCoy, not very uncommon.

Pecten (?) fimbriatus, Phill., common.

P. subelmgatus, McCoy, not rare.

Geology of Northumberland. 61

Amusium deornatum, Phill. sp., rare.

A. Sowerbyi, McCoy.

Pterinea kevigata, McCoy, two young (?) specimens.

Pteronites persulcatus, McCoy.

Streblopteria kevigata, McCoy, rare, of large size.

Str. pulchella, McCoy, rare.

Aviculopectm caslatus, McCoy, rare.

A. cancellatus, McCoy, rare.

A. concavus, McCoy, not uncommon.

A. conoideus, McCoy, one specimen.

A. dooms, McCoy, common.

A . granosus, Sow., sp.

A. Ruthvmi, McCoy, one small specimen.

A. segregates, McCoy, rare.

Lithodomus Jenhinsoni, McCoy, not uncommon.

Anodontopsis (?) pristina, M. V. K. sp., rare.

Myophoria depressa, Portl. sp., common.

My. obliqua, McCoy, common.

Pinna flexicostata, McCoy, very common.

P. spatula, McCoy, rare.

Edmondia Egertoni, McCoy, not very common.

E. Jqsepha, de Kon., rare.

E. oblonga, McCoy, abundant.

E. phaseolina, Gold., sp., not uncommon.

E. rudis, McCoy, rare.

E. scalaris, McCoy, very rare.

E. sulcata, Phill. sp., extremely abundant.

E. unioniformis, Phill. sp., rare.

Sanguinolites iridinoides, McCoy, very abundant.

S. striato-lamellosus, de Kon. sp., rare.

S. subcarinatus, McCoy. ,

S. sukatus, Flem. sp., common.

5. tricostatus, Portl. sp., very rare.

S. variabilis, McCoy, not uncommon.

Leptodomus costellatus, McCoy, common, in shales.

Conocardium aliforme, Sow. sp.

Solenomya primtzva, Phill., very common.

S. pr., var. b, Puzosana de Kon., not uncommon.

Conularia quadrisulcata, Miller MS., one small specimen.

Phurotomaria altavittata, McCoy, not uncommon.

PI. decipiens, McCoy, rare (two varieties).

PI. erosa, McCpy, rare.

PI. Griffithi, McCoy, very rare.

Murchisonia dispar, McCoy, not very uncommon.

Polytremaria catenata, de Kon. sp., rare.

Platyschisma glabrata, Phill. sp., very small specimen.

62 Outlines of the

PI. helicoides, Sow. sp., common.

Straparollus (?) catillus, Mart, sp., rare.

Sir. costellatus, McCoy, rare.

Str. Dyonysii, McCoy, rare.

Str. pentangulatus, Sow. sp., internal casts.

Str. tabulates, PhiM. sp., not uncommon.

Naticopsis variata, Phill. sp., two specimens.

Loxonema rugifera, Phill., very rare.

Macrocheilus acutus, Phill., common.

M. brevispiratus, McCoy, rare.

M. Umnceiformis, McCoy, not very common.

M . sigmilineus, Phill., sp., rare.

M. (?) spiratus, McCoy, common.

Dentalium dentaloideum, Phill. sp., very common.

Bellerophon decussatus ( ?) Flem., very large spms., not very rare.

B. Dumonti, d'Orb., casts (?).-

B. Larcomi, Portl., one specimen.

B. Phillipsi, McCoy, rare, casts.

B. recticostatus, Portl., one cast.
Nautilus bilobatus, Sow., rare.
N. coronatus, McCoy, very rare.

N. costato-coronatus, McCoy, very rare.

Niglobatus, Sow., not very uncommon.

N. ingens, Mart, sp., common, of large size.

N. oxystomus, Phill., rare.

N. quadratus, Flem., common.

Aganides reticulatus, Phill. sp., one obscure fragment.

Orthoceras Breyni, Mart, sp., not uncommon.

O. cordiforme, Sow., rare.

O. cornu-vaccinum, McCoy, not very uncommon.

O. cylindraceum, Flem., rare.

O. Flemingi, McCoy, very rare.

O. fusiforme, Sow., not very common.

O. giganteum, Sow., very common and of great size.

O. inequiseptum, Phill., rare.

O. laterale, Phill., not uncommon.

O. rugosum, Flem., rare.

O. Sowerbyi,, McCoy, not uncommon.

O. undatum, Flem., not very uncommon.

Diphyphyllum gracile, McCoy, not uncommon.

CHsiophyllum prolapsum, McCoy, var. and minor, one specimen.

Siphonodendron sexdecimale, Phill. sp., not uncommon.

Cladodus striatus, Ag., rare.

Cochliodus magnus, Ag., common (?).

C. striatus, Ag., very rare.
Helodus planus, Ag., rare.

Geology of Northumberland.

6$

Leptacanthus Jenkinsoni, McCoy, not very uncommon.

Petalodus acuminatus, Ag., not uncommon.

P. Hastingsii, Owen, very rare.

P. rectus, Ag., not uncommon.

Pcecilodus Jonesii, Ag., very rare.

Psammodus cornutus, Ag., rare.

Ps. rugosus, Ag., rare (var. porosus).

Next is a list of the fossils found in two of the beds included in
the Lowick series, the occurrence in each bed being here dis-
criminated however. N.B. — The Foraminifera will be >given
separately.

List of fossils found in the "Great'" and "four-Fathom"'
Limestones : —

Great

Four-Fathom

Limestone.

Limestone.

Chmtetes tumidus, Phill. ...

*

#

Aulophyllum fungites, Flem.

... ... #

... :>:

Cladochanus bacillaris, McCoy

:[:

Favosites parasitica, Phill.

Lithostrotion irregulare, Phill.

Griffithides Farnensis, Tate

*

Gr., sp

Leperditia, sp

Spirorbis carbonarius, Murch.

■ '■ ... *

Archaocidaris Urei, Flem.

Poteriocrinus crassus, Mill.

Hydreiapocrinus globularis, de I>

Ion.

*

Glauconome pulcherrima, McCoj

J

#

Gl. pluma, Phill

Fenestetta phbeia, McCoy

F. membranacea, Phill. ...

*

...

Lingula mytiloides, Sow. ...

*

L. squamiformis, Phill. ...

*

£

L., sp

.*

Productus fimbriates, Sow.

* .

•*

P. punctatus, Mart.

*

*

P. scabriculus, Mart.

.. ... ^

P. Flemingii, Sow.

*

1*

P. Martini, Sow. ...

*

*

P. semireticulatus, Mart. ...

*

*

P. Cora, d'Orb

*

*

P. latissimus, Sow.

*

*

P- giganteus, Mart.

*

*

Orthis Michelini, Lev.

jj;

*

0. resupinata, Mart.

."./ ". *

*

Streptorhyncus crenistria, Phill.

*

:(=

<64 Outlines of the

Sty. arachnoidea, Phill * ... _

Rhynchonella pleurodcm (?), Phill. ... * ... *

Spiriferina laminosa, McCoy * ... _

S. octoplicata, Sow. ■ * ... _

Spirifer pinguis, Sow _ ... #

S. lineatus, Mart * ... *

S. Vrei, Flem * ... _

S. glaber, Mart * ... *

S. sex-radialis, Phill ' * ... _

S. bisulcatus, Sow. ■* ... *

S. trigonalis, Mart. > * ■•• *

Athyris ambigua, Sow _ ... *

A. piano -sulcata, Phill _ ... *

A starte tremula, de Ryck. _ ... *

Solemya prvmava, Phill * ... *

Area cancellata, Mart. ... ... ... * ... *

Z,ei« attenuata, Flem * ... *

Ctenodonta undulata, Phill. _ ... *

Ci. gibbosa, Flem * ... *

Leptodomus costellatus, McCoy * ... ^

SanguinoUtes striato-lamellosus, de Kon. * ... _

5. constrictus, King * ... _

5. angustatus, PhilL ... _ ... *

S. transversus, Port. # ... _

5. iridinoides, McCoy ... ... ... $ ... _

S. variabilis, McCoy # ... *

Edmondia rudis, McCoy _ ... $

£. sulcata, Phill « ... *

E. oblonga, McCoy ,.. * ... *

Myophoria depressa, Port _ ... *

Liihodomus dactyhides, McCoy ... ... _ ... $

Pinna membranacea, de Kon $ ... _

P.flexicostata, McCoy ... :; -. ... _

P. flabelliformis, de Kon. ". : ; : ... _

Aviculopecten variabilis, McCoy _ ... #

j4. tabulatus, McCoy _ ... *

^4. micropteris, McCoy _ ... $

A. duplicostatus, McCoy $ ... _

X. inUrstitialis, Phill : ; : ... :;:

/I. concentrico-striatus, McCoy _ ... #

A. cancellatus, McCoy _ ... $

4. tcelatus, McCoy _ ... -;. '

PUronites persulcatus, McCoy _ ... ^

Amusium deornatum, Phill. ... ... * ... $

j4. Sowerbyi, McCoy * ... _

Pecten sub-elongatus, McCoy # ... _

Geology of Northumberland.

65

Conularia quadrisukata, Sow. ...
Macrocheilus acutus, Sow.

M. spiratus, McCoy

M. ovalis, McCoy

M. sigmiiineus

M. Umnaformis, McCoy

Loxonema elongata, de Kon.

L. tumida, Phill

L: rugifera, Phill

L. sulculosa, Phill.

Naticopsis plicistria, Phill.

N. spirata

Euomphalus tabulatus, Phill.

E. Dionysii, Golf.

£. costellatus, McCoy

£. carboparius, Sow

Murchisonia quadricarinata, McCoy

M. angulata (?) Phill ...

M., sp. ...

Pkurotomaria monilifera, Phill

P. decipiens, McCoy

P. atomaria, Phill

Capulus trilobatus, Phill

Belkrophon Urei, Flem

B. striates, Flem

£. decussatus, Flem

B. navicula, Sow

Actinoceras giganteum, Sow.

Poterioceras cornu-vaccinum, McCoy

Orthoceras undulatum Sow.

O. sulcatum, Flem.

O. attenuatum, Flem

O. cylindraceum, Flem

O. inequiseptum, Phill

O. pyramidale, Flem.

O. Goldfussianum, de Kon. '

Nautilus ingens, Mart

N. globatus, Sow

JV. bilobatus, Sow *

W. costato-coronatus, McCoy

iV. subsulcatus, Phill

JV. biangulatus, Sow

iV. sulcatus, Sow

N. perplanatus, Portl

Psammodus cornutus, Ag

Rhizodus Hibberti, Ag.

*

*

*

*

_

*

_

*

*

_

*

_

*

*

*

*

_

*

*

*

_■

*

„

*

_-

*

*

—

•i-

*

*

_

*

_

*

_

*

*

_

*

__

*

*

*

.. _

*

• • _

*

*

*

_

* - •

*

_

*

5fc

_

*

-_

*:

_

*

66 Outlines of the

The succeeding list gives a good idea of the fauna of the Berni-
cian beds in that part of them which corresponds to the Scar
Limestone Series. Many more species will probably be added
to this list, as the locality is extremely rich in fossils and has by
no means been collected out.

It may be mentioned here that in a bed of limestone still
lower in the series the genu's Agdacrinus, one usually limited to
Silurian rocks, has been found. An account of this fossil is to be
found in the Annals of the Belgian Geological Society for 1876,
and the specimen is now being described by a competent naturalist.
It appears to be very closely allied to, if not identical with, Ag.
squamosus of Meek and Worthen, a species represented by one
single American Carboniferous specimen.

List of Fossils from the Ridsdale ironstone beds, Northumber-
land : —

Chwtetes tumidus, Phill.

Ch., sp.

Cyathophylluvo., sp.

Clisiophyttum; sp.

FavosiUs, sp.
/ Lithostrotion irregulars,- Phill.

Lithodmdron junceum, Flem.

L. floriforme.

Syringopora geniculata, Phill.

Poteriocrinus (?), sp.

P. crassus.

Rhodocrinus, sp.

Woodocrinus, sp.

Archeocidaris, Urei.

Arch., sp.

HemitrypaHibernica; McCoy.

Polypora papillata, McCoy.

Ceriopora, sp.

Fenestella plebeia.

F., sp.

Athyris Royssii, L'EveillS.

Discina nitida, Phill.

Lingula mytiloides, Sow.

L. Scotica, Dav.

L. squamtformis, Phill.

Orthis resupinata, Mart.

Orth., sp.

Productus Cora, d'Orb.

Pr. giganteus, Mart.

Pr. longispinus, Sow.

Geology of Northumberland. 67

Pr. I., var. lobatus, Sow.

Pr. scabriculus, Mart.

Pr. undatus, Defr.

Pr. Martini.

Rhynchonella pugnus, Mart.

: Spirifera glabra, Mart.

S. lineata, Mart. ■

S. laminosa, McCoy. -

Strophomena analoga, Phill.

Terebratula sacculus, Mart.

Chonetes Hardrensis (Phill. sp.)

Ch., sp.

Aviculopecten planoradiatus, McCoy.

A. papyraceus, Sow.

A. concdvus, McCoy.

A. ccelatus, McCoy.
A., new sp.

Pinna flexicostatd, McCoy.

P., sp.

P., sp.

Anthracosia acuta, Sow.

j4«j»ms sulcatus, Sow.

/4#. axiniforniis, Portl.

;4.£. carbonarius, Sow.

Dolabra equilateralis, McCoy.

Ctenodonta tumida, Phill.

Leda attenuate, Flem.

Edmondia arcuata.

E. quadrdta, McCoy.

E. sulcata, Phill.

Mytilus Fhmingii, McCoy.

Myacites Austinei, Sow.

M. primoeva, Portl.

M. sulcata.

M., sp. ,

Sanguinolites curtus, McCoy.

S. irridinoides, McCoy.

S. plicatus, Portl.

S., sp.

Conularia qttadrisulcata, Sow.

Macrocheihis canaliculars, McCoy.

Euomphahts, sp.

Bellerophon decussatus, Flem.

B. Urei, Flem.
B., sp.

Goniatites obtusus, Phill.

68 Outlines of the

G. spharicus, de Haare.

G. truncatus, Phill.

G., sp.

Cyrtoceras Gesneri, Mart.

Discites sulcatus, Sow.

Orthoceras ovale, Phill.

Or., sp.

Discites subsulcatus.

D., sp.

Cladodus striatus, Ag.

Gyracanthus tuberculatus, Ag.

Helodus Icevissimus, Ag.

Psammodus reticulatus.

P. porosus, Ag.

P., sp.

Specimens of all these species from this rich locality are
preserved in the Museum of the College of Physical Science.

The interesting fossil Posidonomya Beckeri occurs at Budle and
in the neighbourhood of Alnwick, and appears to be confined to
the Upper Bernician Series. Its exact horizon is doubtful.

The two next lists are very complete as to the microzoa, and
for them I have to thank the Rev. Mr. Howchin, F.G.S., of Halt-
whistle, who kindly washed the material collected by me, and
determined the species. The Scremerston Limestone is one of
the lowest in the series, while that at Lamberton is the " Dun
Limestone " which, as has been explained already (p. 44), is taken
as the base of the Bernician rocks.

A list of fossils observed in a washing taken from a band in
the Scremerston Limestone, South of Berwick : —

Climacammina antiqua, Brady, very rare.

Endothyra Bowmani, Phill., rare.

E. radiata, Brady, rather scarce.

Stacheia polytrematoides, Brady, rather scarce.

Textularia eximia, d'Eich., very rare.

Trochammina incerta, d'Orb., common.

Valvulina palteotrochus, Ehreub., rare.

„ „ var. compressa, moderately common.

V. decurrens, Brady, common.
V. plicata, Brady, very rare.
Stenopora tumida, Phill.
Archaocidaris sp., various small spines.
Encrinital remains.
Spirorbis globosus (?), McCoy.

Geology of Northumberland. 69

Entomostraca, common.
Glauconome flexi-carinata, Y. and Y.
Hyphasmopora Buskii, Eth.
Rhabdomeson gracile, Y. and Y.
Rh. rhombiferttm, Y. and Y.
Chonetes Buchiana (?), de Kon.
Lingula, sp.

Productus semireticulatus, Mart.
'Spirifera glabra, Mart.
Sp., sp.

Streplorhynchus crenistria, Phill.
Loxonema polygyra (?), McCoy, cast.
Ctenoptychius serratus, Ag.
Numerous small fish remains.

A list of Fossils observed in a' washing taken from the
Lamberton Limestone, three miles North of Berwick : —

Archadiscus Karreri, Brady, rare.

Endothyra radiata, Brady, rare.

Saccammina Carteri, Brady, single specimen.

Stacheia acervalis, Brady, rare.

St. congesta, Brady, rare.

St. fusiformis, Brady, rare.

St. pblytrematoides, Brady, rather scarce.

Trochammina incerta, d'Orb, very common.

Valvulina decurrens, Brady, moderately common.

V. palceotrochus, Ehrenb., common.

V., var. compressa, rare.

V. plicata, Brady, rather scarce.

Stenopora tumida, Phill.

Archaocidaris, sp., plates.

Encrinital, stems, etc.

Ortonia carbonaria, Young.

Spirorbis, sp.

Entomostraca, rather scarce.

Ceriopora interporosa, Phill.

Fcnestetta, sp.

Glauconome marginalis, Y. and Y.

Gl. retroflexa, Y. and Y.

GL, sp.

Hyphasmopora, sp.

Polypora, sp.

Sulcoretepora parallcla, Phill.

Spirifera, sp.

Productus giganteus, extremely abundant.

7©

Outlines of the

Bernician Foramimfera of Northumberland, after H. B. Brady,
F.R.S. :—

Archtediscus Karreri, Brady.
Bigenerina patida, Brady.

Lower Bernician (= Scaur Lime-
stones).

Upper Bernician (= Yoredalfr
Beds).

Upper and Lower Bernician.

Endothyra ammonoides, Brady.

E. Bowmani, Phill.

£. crassa, Brady.

E. globulus, Eichw.

E. macella, Brady.

E. obliqua, Brady.

E. ornata, Brady.

E. radiata, Brady.

Lagena Howchiniana, Brady.

L. Lebouriana, Brady.

L. Parkeriana, Brady.

Lituola nautiloidea, Lam.

Saccammina Carteri, Brady, —
(characteristic of the Four-
Fathom Limestone, but also
found at other horizons).

Stacheia acervalis, Brady.

St. congesta, Brady.

St. fusiformis, Brady.

St. polytrematoides, Brady.

St. pupoides, Brady.

Textularia eximia, Eichw.

T.gibbosa, d'Orb.

Trochammina anceps, Brady.

Tr. annularis, Brady.

Tr. centrifuga, Brady.

Tr. gordialis, Park and Jones.

Tr. incerta, Brady.

Valvulina palceotrochus, Ehreub.

V. plicata, Brady.

V. Youngi, Brady.

We conclude with a list of those Carboniferous Limestone
fossils which are quoted by d'Orbigny as occurring in Northum-
berland.

Carboniferous fossils recorded from
D'Orbigny's Prodr6me, (1850) : —

Lower Bernician.

Upper and Lower Bernician.

Upper Bernician.

Upper and Lower Bernician.

Upper Bernician.
Lower ,,

Upper and Lower Bernician.

Upper Bernician.

Upper and Lower Bernician.

Upper Bernician.

Upper and Lower Bernician.

Upper Bernicians.

Upper and Lower Bernician.

-, " n ." "

Lower Bernician.

Northumberland in

* See Brady's "Monograph of Carboniferous and Permian Foramimfera."
Pateontographical Society's Publications for 1876.

Geology of Northumberland. 7 1

In this list the locality " Harelaw " is supposed, in some
cases, to be a misprint for Hareshaw.

Nautilus Phillipsianus, d'Orb. (=sulcates, Sow, 1826, non sukatus,
Risso, 1825).

N. tetragonus, Phill.

Cyrtoceras rugosum, de Kon. (=Orth. annulatum and rugosum, Phill.)

Loxonema rugifera, Morris (—Chemnitzia rug., de KoH., and

Melonia rug., Phill.)

Macrocheilus acutus, Phill. (—Buccinum acutum, Sow., M. ovdlis r
McCoy, and Littorina pusilla, McCoy).

Natica elliptica, Phill.

N. plicistria, Phill. (=Nerita plicis., de Kon.)

N. ampliata, Phill. (=Nerita ampl., de Kon.)

Straparolus pentcmgulatus, d'Orb. (=Euomphalus pent.. Sow.)

Str. tabulatus, d'Orb. (=Euomph. tabulates, Morris, and Cirrus tab-
ulates, Phill.)

Murchisonia triserialis (?) d'Orb. (=Turitella triser., Phill.)

Pleurotomaria vittata, Phill., Otterburn.

Pholodomya sulcata, d'Orb. {=Sanguinolaria sulc., Phill.)

Lyonsia arcuata (?). d'Orb. (=Sanguinolaria arcuata, Phill.),
Harelaw.

Sokmya primava (?), Phill.

Ltda clavifOrmis, d'Orb. (=Nucula clavif., Sow.), Harelaw and
Otterburn.

£,. brevirostris, d'Orb. (=Nucula brevir., PhilL), Harelaw.

Cypricardia tumida, d'Orb. (—Nucula turn., Phill.)

C. rhombea, Phill. (=Cy.glabrata, Phill. and C. bipartita, de Kon.)

Cardiomorpha elliptica, de Kon. (=Vmus elliptica (?), Phill.)

C. axiniformis, d'Orb. (—Isocardia axiniformis, Phill., and Nucula

luciniformis, Phill.)
Pinna granulosa, d'Orb. (=Modiola granul., Phill.)
Lingula parallela, Phill.
Productus giganteus, Sow. 1

Pr. latissimus, Sow.
Pr. Cora, d'Orb., Lowick.
Pr. semireticulatus, Flem.
Pr. costates, Sow, Lowick.
Pr. Flemingii, Sow.
Pr. scabriculus, Sow., Harelaw.
Pr. punctatus, Sow., Otterburn and Lowick.
Pr. fimbriates, Sow.
Chonetes sulcata, de Kon., Lowick.

Ch. tuberculata, de Kon. (=Leptana tuberc, McCoy), Lowick.
Strophomena depressa, d'Orb. ( =: Leptagonia depressa, McCoy,
Producta depressa, Sow. and Leptmna depressa, de Kon.)

72 Geology of Northumberland.

Spirifcra duplicostata, Phill. (—Sp.furcata, McCoy).

Sp. integricosta, Phill.

Sp. duplicicosta, -Phill.

Sp. trigonalis, Sow. (=Sp. transients, McCoy).

Sp. bisulcata, Sow. (—Sp. semicircularis, Phill.)

Spirigera ambigua, d'Orb. (= Spirifer ambiguus, Sow., and Tere-

bratula ambigua, de Kon.)
Terebratula sacculus, Mart. (= Ter. hastata), Phill., Otterbum.
Orbiculoidea nitida, d'Orb;, Harelaw, Otterbum.
Diphyphyllum irregulare, d'Orb., (= Lithodendron irreg. Phill.
Chetetes septosus, de Keys. (= Favosites septosus, Flem.)

73

TOPOGRAPHICAL INDEX.

Acklington, 29, 47-49, 56.

Acomb, 12, 38.

Acre, 36, 39.

Adderstone, 9.

Allendale, West, 50.

Allenheads, 36.

Allerdean, 39.

All er wash, 35.

Aln, zz, 16.

Alnmoutb, g.

Alnwick, 13, 33, 54.

Alston Moor, 33-36, 38, 41, 52.

Alwin, 6, 48, 58.

Alwinton, 6, 45, 57.

Andrew's Close, 38.

.Angerton, 8, xo.

Bamburgh, g, 13*

Bamburgh Castle, 54.

Bardon Mills, 36, 41.

Barrow Scroggs, 45.

Bavington, 16, 53.

Bavington Hall, 50.

Beacon, The, 42.

Beadnell, 36, 39, 49.

Beadnell Bay, 54.

Beal, 9.

Bedlington, 49.

Belford, 55.

Belling, The, 50.

Bellingham, 38.

Belsay, 34. 38.

Benwell Hill, 24.

Berry Hills, 52.

Berwick, g, 13, 38, 44, 51.

Biddlestone, 43, 45, 48, 56.

Biddy Mill, 48.

Billsmoor, 41, 50, 51.

Bingfield Burn, 50.

Black Burn, 51.

Black Law, 58.

Blanchland, 32,

Blaydon, 28.

Blenkinsopp, 38.

Blindburn, 56.

Blyth, 22.

Blyth, River, 9, 16.

Bogball, 38.

Bolam, 50.

Boldon, 26.

Bondicar, 49.

-Boulmer, 51.

Bradford, 13, 14.

Breamish, 7, 56.

Brier Edge, 38.

Brinkburn, 36.

Brockley Whins, 26.

Brownlees, 38.

Brunton, 50.

Budle, 9.

Burnt Divot, 8.

Burradon, 24.

Byker, 24, 49.

Cairnglastenhope, 8.

Callalee, 41.

Cambo, 38.

Carbarn, 13.

Carritetb, 38.

Carrycoats, 38.

Carter Fell, 42, 57, 58.

Cartington, 49.

Cawledge Mill, 9.

Cbathill, 14.

Cheviot, 56. v

Cheviots, The, 3-8, 16, 43, 55-58.

Chevy Chase Road, 46.

Chillingham, 44.

Cbirdon Burn, 9.

Chirm, 35, 39.

Cbollerton, 16, 53.

Chopwell, 32.

Cbristenbury Crags, 42.

Clarewood, 38.

Cleadon, 48, 49.

Clennell, 48, 49, 56.

Clennell Street, 57.

Closing Hill, 20, 26.

Clyde, 14.

Coal House, 50.

Coldstream, 51.

Coley Hill, 48, 49.

Condercum, 24.

Coquet, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 29, 32, 33. 35,

41, 42, 45, 49, 56-
Coquetdale, 4, 45, 56.
Corbridge, 4, 5, 16, 2g, 34, 41.
Cornhill, 51.
Cottonshope Head, 57.
Cowden, 38.
Cramlington, 27, 49.
Cross Fell, 37«

Cullercoats, 4, x8, 19, 20, 24, 58.
Cumberland, 4, 29, 42.

74

Darden Lough, 8, 51.

Deadwater Fell, 42.

Denton, 4, 27. ,

Derweut, 8, 12, 24, 28, 31, 32.

Derwentcote, 32.

Dewley, 49.

Drake Stone, The, 42.

Drybum, 39, 60.

Dunstanburgh, 54.

Durham, 18, 22, 23, 26-28.

Dyke Head, 53.

Dykenook, 6.

East Woodburn, 15, 41.

Eden, 11.

Eelwell, 37, 39.

Eglingham, 40.

Erf Hills, 36, 53, 55-

Ellis Crag, 42.

Elsdon, 6, 8, 38, 50.

ElsdoD Burn, 50.

Elswick, 7.

Embleton, 54.

Erring Burn, 16.

Fallowlees Burn, 54.

Falistone, 51.

Fame Islands, 54.

Fleetham, 39.

Font, 7, 37, 50.

Forest Bum, 54.

Fourstones, 41.

Gallow Hills, 53.

Gateshead, 12, 23.

Glororura, 14.

Goldstone, 49.

Gosforth, 22, 24.

Grasslees, 42.

Great Whittington, 38.

Greeneyes Crag, 38.

Greenhead, 51.

Greenlee Lough, 38.

Greenleighton, 54.

Greenses, 39.

Greenside, 4.

Gunnerton, 38.

Haltwhistle, 8, 11, 36, 38, 41.

Haltwhistle Burn, 36.

Hampeth Burn, 51.

Harbottle, 6, 41-44.

Harelaw, 71.

Haresbaw, 50. -

Hareshaw Head, 38.

Harkess Rocks, 54.

Harlow Hill, 32, 34, 59.

Hartington, S3-

Hartley, ig, 20, 23.

Hart side Pike, 41.

Haswell, 27.

Haughton Castle, S3*

Haydon Bridge, 11, 35, 36, 50.

Heaton Mill, 51.

Hebburn, 48, 51. >

Hedworth, 48.

Hepple, 45.

Hetchester, 45.

Hetton, 27.

Hexham, 38.

High Carrick, 50.

High Green, 50.

Hindhope, 58.

Hobberlaw, 39, 54.

Holy Island, 9, 10, 13, 47, 49.

Homilton, 53.

Horsley (Redewater), 6, 42.

Howgate, 39.

Howick, 10, 51.

Inghoe, 34, 33, 37. 38, 4°t 41.

Ingleborough, 31.

Irthing, 8, 10, 11, 42.

Jarrow Slake, 9.

Kenton, 24.

Killingworth, 20, 24, 26.

Kinderscout, 31.

Kirk-Whelpington, 53.

Knowes Gate, 52.

Knucton, 55.

Kyloe, 50, 55.

Lamberton, 44.

Leitham, 50.

Lewis Burn, 3g, 50.

Licker, 35, 39.

Lindisfarne, 49.

Linnsheolcs, 42.

Lippwood, 36. ~

Lisle Burn, 15.

Little Bavington, 38.

Lough House, 10.

Lowdean, 36.

Lowick, 5, 36, 3g, 50, 60.

Low Teppermpor, 52.

Lucker, 14.

Lumsdon, 7.

Makendon, 46, 57.

Matfen, 34, 35, 37.

Mattalees, 51. ,

Medomsley, 28.

Middleton (in Wansbeck Valley), 10.

Middleton (near Wooler), 9, 55.

Milkington, 51.

Minsteracres, 4.

Mitford, 16, 32.

Monkridge, 7.

Morpeth, 7, 11, 16, 28, 32.

Newcastle, 4, 23, 24, 25, 49.

Newham, 14.

Newminster, 11.

Newnharo, 49.

Newsham, 22.

Newton, 10.

Newton North Farm, 54.

Newton Underwood, 37.

North Seaton, 26.

North Shields, 18.

North Sunderland, 10, 37.

North Tyne, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 42, 44,

50, 52, 53-
Oak wood, 38.
Old Newton, 54.
Otterbum, 7.
Ovingham, 32.
Peel Fell, 42.

75

Penine Chain, 8, 37..

Peppermoor, 54.

Philip, 46.

Plashetts, 6; 38, 51.

Plessey, 28.

Plough Rock, 49.

Pont, 10, 50.

Ponteland, 10.

Prestwick Carr, 10.

Prudhoe, 59.

Ramshope, 56.

Ratcheugh, 54.

Redesdale, 4, 6.

Redesmouth, 15.

Redewater, 7, 10, 15, 42, 46, 56

Redheugh, 10, 12.

Riccarton, 46.

Ridlees, 56, 57.

Ridlees Burn, 57,

Ridsdale, 66.

Rochester, 42.

Roddam Dene, 43. '

Rothbury, 16, 41, 42, 55, 56.

Rothley, 34.

Rowlands Gill, 16.

Ruben Law, 58.

Rugley, 54.

Ryho^e, 23.

Salt wick, 31.

Scot's Gap, 36,

Scremerston, 33.

Seaton Burn, 24.

Seaton Sluice, 18-20, 24, 48

Shafthoe, 34.

Sharperton, 45.

Shilbottle, 39, 49, 51..

Shilburnhaugh, io, 38, 39

Shillmoor, 49.

Short Cleugh, 50. '

Silly Burn, 35.

Simonside Hills, 8, 41.

Slatyford, 49.

Soppit, 38.

South Shields, 10.

South Tyne, 7, 8, 11, I2 r 34, 35, 50, 52.

Spindlestone, 55.

Spittleford, 54.

St. John Lee, 12.

St. Margaret's Farm, 54.

St. Mary's Haven, 54.

St. Mary's Island, 9, 24.

St. Oswald's Chapel, 50.

Starslee, 39.

Stiddle Hill, 38.

Stocksfield, 31, 59..

Stublick, 4, 5, 29.

Sweethope, 52.

Swinburne Mill, 52.

Swinhoe, 39.

Swire, The, 6.

Tarret Burn, 50, 51.

Tarset, n.

Team, 12.

Thorngrafton, 16.
. Till, 7, 12.

Tosson, 51.

Town. Moor, 49.

Tdwneley, 28.

Trobe's Dene, 49.

Trough End, 50.

Tyne, 4, Q-I2, 16, 26, 29, 31-34. 4*. 48-

Tynedale, 4.

Tynemouth, 9, 18, 48.

Tweed, 13, 44, 47.

"Walker, 48.

Wallington, 8.

Wallsend, 27.

Wanney Crags, 41.

Wansbeck, 7, 8, 10-12, 16, 27, 32, 34*.
35. 4i. 46. 49. 52.

Ward's Hill, 54, 55.

Warden Hill, n.
.Wark, 38.

Wark's Burn, 30.

Warkworth, 27, 31, 32.

Watling Street, 50.

West Allendale, 50..

Whetstone House, 15.

Whickhope Burn, 10.

White Law, 57.

Whitelee, 46, 58.

Whitfield, 50.

Whitley, g, 18, 23.

Whittington, 35.

Whittonstall, 4,(28, 31, 59..

Whorlton, 49.
' Widdrington, 29.

Wide-Open, 24. \

Wolsington, 28.

Woodburn, East, 15..

Woodhorn, 29.

Wooler, 9, 56.

Wylam, 16, 24, 28..

Yevering, 56, 57.

Illustrations of Fossil Plants: An

Autotype Reproduction of Selected Drawings, prepared between
the years 1835 and 1840, by the late Dr. Lindley and Mr. W.
Hutton. Edited by G. A. Lebour, F.G.S. Royal 8vo., 65 Plates.
(1877). Price £1 5s.

A Catalogue of the Hutton Collection

of Fossil Plants : Including a Synoptical List of the chief Car-
boniferous Species not in the Collection. By G. A. Lebour,
F.G.S. Royal 8vo., 1878 (uniform with the "Illustrations").
Price 8s.

N.B. — The above Works are published by the North of
England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.

ALSO, BY THE SAME AUTHOR,

Nomenclator Stratigraphicus: a Hand-

Book of the Nomenclature of the Sedimentary Rocks. In the Press.
Price to Subscribers, 7s. 6d. ; after Publication, 12s. 6d.

AND NEARLY READY,

A Geological Map of Northumberland:

Drawn up from the most recent available sources, and from
personal survey, on a scale of three miles to an inch. Published
by A. Reid, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Three volumes of this publication have been issued. They describe or
notice works on Geology, Mineralogy, and Palaeontology published
during the years 1874 to 1876.

The first, for 1874, pp. xvi, 397, is priced 15 shillings.

The second, for 1875, pp. xx, 443, is priced 16 shillings.

The third, for 1876, pp. xxii, 416, is priced 16 shillings.

Copies can be had of Messrs. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court,
Fleet Street, London.

The fourth volume, describing works published in 1877, is in
hand, and will be published at the price of 10s. 6d. to Subscribers
and of 16s. after publication.

The chief contributors are : —

H. Bacerman, F.G.S., Assoc. Inst. C.E. A. J. Jukes-Browne, B.A., F.G.S.

Prof. T. G. Bonney, M.A., F.E.S., E.G. S. G. H. Kinah an, M.E.I. A.

(Sub-Editor for Petrology). G A Leb(WEj r& g (gub . Editor for

W. Carruthers, F.E.S., F.G.S. (Sub- European and American Geology).

Editor for Botany) pj . of L c MialL| RQ g (Sub -Editor

W. H. Dalton, P.G.S. (Sub-Editor for for Vertebrate Paleontology).

Addenda and Supplements). _ _ , .,,_,„

„„„ D T, „ a E. T. Newton, F.G.S.

C. E. De Eance, P.G.S. . „ . ' „„ „ ~ „

Ti tv rnno /0 ,„,., » .... Prof. H. A. Nicholson, D.Sc., P.G.S.

F. Drew F.G.S. (Sub-Editor for Asiatic (Su b-Editor for Invertebrate Pate-

Geology and Physical Geology). ontology).

E. Erdmann (Sweden). Prof p _ w EuDLEE] Ras . (Sub-Editor

E. Etheeidge, Jun., P.G.S. (Sub-Editor f ov Mineralogy)

for Australasian Geology) ^ (Sub-Editor for

C. Le N. Poster D.Sc, P.G.S., H.M. AfHcan Geology).

Inspector of Mines. „ „ _, * T , _ _, ._ ,

„ -n „ W.Topley, F.G.S., Assoc.Inst.C.E.(Sub-

C. e. Ulotne. Editor for British Geology and Ap-

J. G. Goodchild. plied Geology).

T. M. Hall, F.G.S. H. B. Woodward, F.G.S. (Sub-Editor

E. T. Hardman, F.C.S. for Maps).

W. Whitaker, B.A., F.G.S. (General Editor).

The help of Authors, of Editors of Scientific Journals, and of
Scientific Societies will be thankfully received. Communications and
names of Subscribers can be sent to the printers, Messrs. Tayior and
Francis (to whom Subscriptions should be paid), or to the Editor,

WILLIAM WHITAKEE,

Geological Survey Office,

28 Jerm/un Street,

GEOLOGICAL RECORD.

Please insert my name in the List of Subscribers to tbe Geological
Record for 1877 and for future years. *

Name-

Address^

Post-Office Orders to be made payable to Messrs, Taylor & Francis,, Red
Lion Court, Meet Street, London.

* Geologists and Societies wishing to subscribe regularly, and not having the
published volumes, can have the set at the Bubscription-prioe, 10s. 6d. each.