56 HISTORY OP BISHOP AUCKLAND. to its junction with the Wear. A good means of drainage for the two valleys is thus provided, together with a plentiful supply of fresh invigorating air ; the Wear conveying it down from the Weardale hills in the west, and the valley of the Gaunless bringing the south-western breezes from the hills which skirt the Tees. On the east, the town is well sheltered from the keen winds which blow from that art by the western escarpment of the magnesian limestone which rises in high terraces at Westerton, Goundou Grange, and Eldon, and a lofty range of coal measure sandstone at Shildon-bank and Brusselton.* We now purpose, after giving a short notice of the Park, to examine some of the old religious foundations, charities, and educational establishments of the town, as its history would be in- complete without them; and more especially the old Parish Church of St. Andrew's, with its contemporary guild of St. Ann's — the two places where our ancestors were first brought to the font of baptism; where they offered up their first accents of prayer and praise ; where the bones of so many of them have mingled again with their kindred dust ; and in the old registers of which are to be found the only brief records of so many of Auckland's earliest inhabitants. " Man through all ages of revolving time, Unchanging man, in every varying clime, Deems his own land of every land the pride — BeloVd by heaven o'er all the world beside ; His home the spot of earth supremely blest — A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest."
- The above brief geological sketch was famished by Mr Joseph Vnff, by whom the following fossils have been discovered : —
Na Species. 7 StarFishee 7 4 Millstone. 6 Fishes 6 3 Magnesian 3 Reptiles 3 1 . 1 Limestone. 4 CoalPlants 4 — Coal Shale. Digitized by Google
