On the Geology of the District of Around Middlesborough

Abstract

This Paper was of the utmost service to the members who attended the meeting at Middlesborough, and contains a clear account of the Geology; with remarks on the Flora of the District. There is however not sufficient new matter to render its publication necessary. The town rests upon an estuarine deposit consisting of clay, sand and gravel, with patches of a peaty nature distributed in low-lying places, containing much vegetable remains, large trunks of oak, a few antlers of the red deer, and numerous shells of the Scrobicularia piperita. A staple going 27ft. below low-water mark, at the new gas tank, revealed nothing but layers of soft blue clay mixed with vegetable matter, and a loamy mixture of silt clay and vegetable matter. Below this is the new red sandstone containing enormous deposits of salt, upwards of 100ft. in thickness, at a depth of about 400 yds. At high water the low-lying places referred to are saturated subterraneously with water, which again disappears with the receding tide.