PRELIMINARY NOTICE i-v  i  ii  iii  iv  v

"It has been endeavoured to render the present volume useful not only as an account of the physical structure of England but also as a general manual of Geology. ...The principles thus generally laid down are, in the body of the work, illustrated in the detail by their application to the geological phoenomena of our own island; the full developement of these forms the princiipal object of the work, but to avoid partial and incomplete views we have subjoined, wherever it was possible, concise accounts of the comparative geology of other countries."

INTRODUCTION i-lxi  i  ii  iii  iv  v  vi  vii  viii  ix  x  xi  xii  xiii  xiv  xv  xvi  xvii  xviii  xix  xx  xxi  xxii  xxiii  xxiv  xxv  xxvi  xxvii  xxviii  xxix  xxx  xxxi  xxxii  xxxiii  xxxiv  xxxv  xxxvi  xxxvii  xxxviii  xxxix  xl  xli  xlii  xliii  xliv  xlv  xlvi  xlvii  xlviii  xlvix  l  li  lii  liii  liv  lv  lvi  lvii  lviii  lix  lx  lxi

[p.ii] If we suppose an intelligent traveller taking his departure from our metropolis, to make from that point several successive journies to various parts of the island, for instance to South Wales, or to North Wales, or to Cumberland or to Northumberland, he cannot fail to notice (if he pays any attention to the physical geography of the country through which he passes) that before he arrives at the districts in which coal is found, he will first pass a tract of clay and sand; then another of chalk; that he will next observe numerous quarries of the calcareous freestone employed in architecture; that he will afterwards pass a broad zone of red marly sand; and beyond this will find himself in the midst of coal mines and iron furnaces. This order he will find to be invariably the same, which ever of the routes above indicated he pursues; and if he proceeds further, he will perceive that near the limits of the coal-fields he will generally observe hills of the same kind of compact limestone, affording grey and dark marbles, and abounding in mines of lead and zinc; and at a yet greater distance, mountainous tracts in which roofing slate abounds, and the mines are yet more valuable; and lastly, he will often find, surrounded by these slaty tracts, central groups of granitic rocks.

The intelligent enquirer, when he has once generalised these observations, can scarcely fail to conclude that such coincidences cannot be casual; but that they indicate a regular succession and order in the arrangement of the mineral masses constituting the Earth's surface; and he must at once perceive that, supposing such an order to exist, it must be of the highest importance to oeconomical as well as scientific objects, to trace and ascertain it.

If with these views he is led to investigate the subject still further, he will find these mineral masses disposed for the most part in stratified beds, not exactly parallel to the horizon, but more or less inclined with reference to that plane; so that the edges of these beds, emerging in succession from beneath each other, make their appearance one after the other on the surface.

[p.ix] With the exception of those contained in the most recent beds (the crag) only, nine out of ten fossil shells belong to species decidedly different from any known to exist. The family of ammonites, for instance, contains more than two hundred fossil species according to many authors, ...yet of all these not one is known recent, and the only recent species of the whole genus is a very minute shell; yet the fossil species sometimes measure three feet in diameter... The same remarks will apply to the belemnites, of which no recent species is known.

[p.xiii] [geology] is a subject which can be treated with advantage only by those who bring to it a matured and precise knowledge of the branches of natural history with which it is connected, a remark extorted by the flippant manner in which some writers have treated conclusions, the premises of which they were incompetent to comprehend. [footnote reference to "the hasty speculations contained in [George Young,] A Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast," published in 1822 by George Young]

[p.xvi] It is not the business of the present work to propose theories, but to record facts.

[p.xliv] [Reference to Hutton, Theory of the Earth] "the wildness of many of his theoretical views, however, went far to counterbalance the utility of the additional facts which he collected from observation."

[p.xlv] In 1790 Mr. William Smith, (a name which can never, in tracing the history of English geology, be mentioned without the respect due to a great original discoverer) appears to have commenced his researches in the neighbourhood of Bath, having in that year drawn up a tabular view of the strata exhibited in that district, which in fact contained the rudiments of his subsequent discoveries. Ten years afterwards he circulated the proposals for publishing a treatise on the Geology of England to be accompanied by a coloured map and sections, and in the interval had freely communicated the information he possessed in many quarters, till in fact it became by oral diffusion the common property of a large body of English geologists, and thus contributed to the progress of the science in many quarters where the author was little known.

[p. lix - on the consistency of the geological record with the Bibilcal Creation account] With regard to the antiquity of the human race, the conclusions deductible from geological reasoning appear strictly in accordance with the declarations of Revelation, no human remains having yet been found excepting in beds of undoubtedly very little antiquity.
    With regard to the time requisite for the formation of the secondary strata, we have the choice of the following hypothesis. [three optional ways of interpreting the Biblical account are listed including days that are of considerable length, and the existence of an unrecorded "intermediate state" following the general statement of Genesis 1:1, out of which the present order was created (sometimes called the gap theory).]

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[p.3] An account of the Geological situation of England, tracing the disposition of the materials which constitute its mineral masses, following the order of that disposition in descending from the formations which occupy the highest place in the series and are therefore of the most recent origin, to those which serve as the basis to all the rest and must therefore have been formed at the earliest period.

Chapter I. Preliminary. 3  003  004  005  006  007  008  009  010


Chapter II. View of the Upper Marine formation. 10  010  011  012  013  014  015  016


Chapter III. Freshwater formations. 16  016  017  018  019  020  021  022


Chapter IV. London Clay. 22  022  023  024  025  026  027  028  029  030  031  032  033  034  035  036  037


Chapter V. Plastic Clay. 37  038  039  040  041  042  043  044  045  046  047  048  049  050  051  052  053  054  055  056


Appendix. On the Formations above the Chalk in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. 56  056

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Synonymes.-This class includes generally all the secondary formations more recent than the great Coal-deposit, and between it and the Tertiary or Newest Floetz class. As the first Floetz Limestone of Werner corresponds with the lowest calcareous formation of this order, it may be said to be coextensive with the Floetz class of his school, as distinguished from the Newest Floetz; but some Wernerians include the Coal-deposits among the Floetz, while others refer them to the Transition oider.

Introduction, comprising a General View of this Order. 59  059  060  061  062

Chapter I. The Chalk Formation.  62


Chapter II. Beds between the Chalk and Oolitic series. 119

Chapter III. Oolilic series, including all the Strata between the iron Sand and Red Marle, or New Red Sandstone. 165

Chapter IV. Formations betecn the Lias and Coal Strata. 278

Contents Book III 321

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Chapter I. General view.

Chapter II. Coal-district north of Trent, or Grand Penine chain. 365

Chapter III. Central Coal-district. Coal-formation, &c. in the fields of: 403

Chapter IV. Western Coal-district; divided into: 417

Chapter V. Trap rocks occurring in association with the coal-measures 437  437  438  439  440  441  442  443
Chapter VI. Comparative view of the distribution of the Carboniferous formations in other countries. 461  461  462  463  464  465  466  467  468  469  470

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This list is inserted on a separate sheet instead of being incorporated in the text, because at the time this part of the work passed through the press it was not intended to enter so much into detail upon this branch of the subject as was afterwards judged expedient; by this addition the work will now be found to contain full catalogues of the Organic remains contained in the various formations, so far as it was possible to refer to figures: unfigured species have seldom been noticed, because a bare name could give little information,

These lists include all the species figured by Mr. Sowerby in the three first volumes of his Mineral Conchology: in the second volume it is intended to give additional lists embracing the figures which may be published during the interval. The present list was chiefly drawn up by Mr. Miller.

Note: The lists read in column sequence: col-1  col-2  col-3  col-4  col-5  col-6  col-7  col-8