CORRESPONDENCE 



To the Editor of " Science Progress " 



THE FLUVIATILE THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE 



OLD RED SANDSTONE 



From J. W. Evans, D.Sc, LL.B. 



Dear Sir, — In Mr. G. W. Tyrrell's interesting article on " The 

 Origin of the Old Red Sandstone " (Science Progress, 

 October 191 7, pp. 333-8) he characterises Prof. Barren's 

 paper on the dominantly fluviatile origin of that formation as 

 the first detailed study from that point of view, but mentions 

 that Mr. C. B. Crampton and Mr. R. G. Carruthers had taken 

 up a similar position in 1 914 in the Caithness Memoir of the 

 Geological Survey. He adds that Mr. E. B. Bailey and H. B. 

 Maufe had approached the theory of fluviatile origin in other 

 recent memoirs, and so had Prof. J. W. Gregory in his Geology 

 of To-day (191 5), and furthermore the late J. G. Goodchild 

 in 1904 came very close to the fluviatile view. This solution, 

 however, of the problem goes back much farther. Prof. 

 T. G. Bonney in his Presidential Address to the Geological 

 Section of the British Association in 1886 (Proceedings, 1886, 

 published in the succeeding year), pp. 616-17, remarks, "The 

 Old Red Sandstone of Scotland and of Wales indicates a yet 

 further continental extension towards the south-east. . . . The 

 Devonian period introduces us in the greater part of Great 

 Britain to an epoch of limited and exceptional deposits, and 

 of widely prevalent terrestrial conditions. It seems almost 

 certain that the Old Red Sandstones of Scotland and Wales 

 are of freshwater origin — the debris of rivers, formed either 

 in lakes or possibly in part as sub-aerial deposits. Streams of 

 considerable volume and of some strength are indicated by 

 the materials. ... It is easy to ascertain the source of the 

 materials of the Scottish Old Red Sandstone. They are as 

 obviously the detritus of the Highland mountains — then 



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