Societies and Academies

Abstract

LEEDS Naturalist's Field Club and Scientific Association, Aug. 5.—Mr. Louis C. Miall read a paper on “The Permian Rocks of the Neighbourhood of Leeds” He first described the base of the Permian System. The carboniferous rocks having been disturbed, thrown into anticlinals and faulted, were greatly denuded, and the Permian rocks were tisen deposited upon the new surface thus produced. The conditions of deposit of the magnesian limestone were then considered. The abundance of mineral salts, exclusive of carbonate of lime, the scantiness of animal life and the dwarfed state of the mollusca, all point to deposition in an inland sea or confined basin similar to the Caspian, Dead Sea, or Great Salt Lake of the present day. In parts of he Triassic period the previous marine surface appears to have become, in part at least, terrestrial or fresh water. At a much later period the Permian rocks, with others of subsequent formation, were denuded extensively, and reduced to the state in which they now occur. The Permian series of the neighbourhood of Leeds were then specially referred to. The Lower New Red Sandstone of South Yorkshire (the Pomfret Rock of Smith) does not appear to be present, at all events in a conspicuous state, in this district. The so-called Lower New Red Sandstone of Plumpton is undoubtedly of carboniferous age. The Upper and Lower Magnesian Limestone are well displayed. Various sections of these rocks at Rigton, East Keswick, Collingham, Whin Moor, and Knaresborough, were described in the paper. Remarks on the colour of the soil produced by underlying Permian rocks on the few fossils which have occurred at Garforth and Cold Hill, near Sherburn, and on the superficial drift, concluded the paper.