Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/388

 the Permian, and calls them the " Lower Red Sandstone." At first he believed them to belong to the underlying millstone grit, but subsequently changed his mind upon this point. The grit (exposed by denudation) under the magnesian limestone in Bramham Park he also assigns to the Permian, though he has not failed to observe the unconformity that exists between these "Lower-Red-Sandstone " beds and the magnesian limestone proper.

Prof. Phillips (in a paper entitled "Notes on the Geology of Harrogate," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxi. p. 234) also assigns the Plumpton grit to the Permian series, and speaks of it in the following words : — " The rock is often quite undistinguishable from millstone grit in hand specimens; even the purple colour (due to decomposed ferruginous mica) fails sometimes As we proceed to the south, and reach the Leeds coal-basin, the Permian beds lose their similitude to millstone grit ; and as we pass to the north and encounter the mountain-limestone, so also the^ resemblance to millstone grit is lost, nor is it recovered in Durham or Northumberland, nor does it occur in any other part of the kingdom, though quartzose pebbles and coarse sand accompany it in many parts." The grit on Bramham Moor, however. Prof. Phillips excludes from the Permians, and he also bears witness to the unconformability of the magnesian limestone to the so-called "Lower Red Sandstone."

Sir Roderick Murchison (on p. 349 of ' Siluria,' 3rd ed.) speaks of the Plumpton rocks, near Harrogate, being " identical with the quartz- conglomerates of Germany, whether as regards their ingredients, colour, false bedding, or massive stratification."

2. Authorities for Millstone-grit Age. — Mr. Binney (in an article in the 'Geol. Mag.' for Feb. 1866) inclines strongly to the belief of the millstone -grit age of these rocks, both on the ground of their apparent conformability to the rocks below them, and of the character of the fossil plants which they contain; while he draws attention to the peculiar circumstance of Permian Lower Red Sandstone having millstone-grit characters solely in a neighbourhood where it overlies the millstone grit.

In a paper by the Rev. John Stanley Tute on the " Geology of the Neighbourhood of Ripon," read before the West-Riding Geological and Polytechnic Society, the red grits below the magnesian limestone are spoken of as being debateable ground ; but the author's views are in favour of their belonging to the millstone-grit series, into which he says they seem to pass gradually.

3. Nature of Beds immediately underlying the Magnesian Limestone from east of Leeds northwards. — East of Leeds the Coal- measures with an easterly strike pass under the unconformable magnesian limestone, the coal at one or two spots being worked beneath it. At Barwick-in-Elmet, immediately beneath the limestone, the shales are micaceous, sandy, and purplish, but these pass gradually down into sandy micaceous shales of the Lower Coal- measures having their usual colour. Just east of the village the little river Cock has cut through the limestone and shown it lying unconformably upon a hard Coal-measure sandstone, close-grained