9. Leeds Northern.—This railway extends from Leeds through Harro gate and 'Upon to the Tees at Stockton, with a branch from Ripon to Thirak.
10. North- Weltern.—This railway (which is often called the 'Little' North-Western, to distinguish it from the greater undertaking known by the same name) extends from Skipton north-west to the neigh bourhood of Ingleton, and thcu south-west to Lancaster, thereby com pleting a line of railway communication from Hull on the east coast to Lancaster on the west.
These railways, from the nature of the country which they traverse, have neceesitated the construction of works of extraordinary magni tude and met. Some of the longest and most difficult tunnels in the country, and very expensive and heavy cuttings and embankments, as well as viaducts and bridges, have called into exercise some of the greatest efforts of engineering akill and constructive ingenuity.
Owing to the abundant railway communication provided between Hull and Liverpool, the traffic of Yorkshire has remarkably increased. Goods from the Baltic and goods for Ireland or for America can be forwarded to Liverpool, and goods for Germany can bo forwarded to Hull, with a facility which has made the south of Yorkshire a great highway of traffic.
Geology.--in this great county, which stretches from the eastern to nearly the western coast of England, a great proportion of the strati fied rocks of the British series may be advantageously observed: the exhibitions of igneous rocks and mineral veins are of an interesting character ; the superficial deposits are extensive and remarkable ; the series of ancient organic life is extremely large. The leading physical features of the county are very obviouaty dependent on its geological structure, and tho modifications to which they are subject by the action of the sea and modern atmospheric agencies are various and instructive.
If through the city of York a line be drawn to the north-north-west and south-south-east, it will pass along the centre of a wide continuous vale, rarely elevated more than 100 feet above the sea. Were the general level of the land altered by a depression quite within the limits of well-known instances, this vale would be a sea-channel, bordered by the cliffs of an island on the east, and more slowly rising lands on the west. The district on the west rises to assume a mountainous
character along nearly all the western border of Yorkshire; the eastern region is somewhat mountainous in its northern portion, and in the southern rises into a curved range of hills, 'the 1Volde,' between the flat district of liolderneas and the vale of Pickering.
The elevated western district is booed on Pabrozic rocks; the central vale and the larger part of the eastern districts are formed on the Mesozoic strata ; while in Holdcrness and in other limited tracts are tertiary and diluvial deposits which may be referred to the Cainozoic) period.
In the condensed descriptions which follow, the deposits are ranged in the order of their relative position in the earth.
CArxoz0Io DEPOSITS.
llurial.
Silt Lands.—The great rivers of Yorkshire which concentrate in the ' Humber, flow in all their lower parts through vast breadths of fiuo sedimeuts, left by the rivers or inundations of the eca, and a great portion of this surface is still below the level of spring-tides, and only defended from floods by banks. In the valley of the Aire, at Ferrybridge, hazel-branches partly petrified, and nuts with the kernels changed to calcareous stone, were found in considerable uumbere. (' Phil. Mag.,' 1828.) Peat or Turf Moors, at no higher level than the silt lands just noted, occupy extensive areas (Thorne Waste and Hatfield Chace), and in some eituatious deposits of like nature occur under 20 or more feet of ailt. Treea in considerable abundance lie in these deposits, and have been stated to show traces of the axe and marks of fire. (De la Pryme, in 'Phil. Trans.') In such peat, on Thorne Waste, skeletons of the fallow deer occur, and in one remarkable case the bones were found to have lost their earthy phosphates and carbonates, and by the action of sulphuric acid to have been subsequently converted to leather by the action of tannin on the remaining gelatine. (' Reports of the British Association,' 1S31.) Shelly Marls.—Under the peaty tracts of Holderness, which are of remarkably small extent, lie marls often filled with lacustriue shells ; and amongst theta rarely the remains of the Irish elk (Cervus yiyanteus) have been found.