NOTES ON CONGLOMERATE AND OLD EED SANDSTONE. 277 



many feet below the surface of the diluvial clay. 



It is an interesting circumstance that you may wander along the escarp- 

 ment of Winder Scar, above Pooley Bridge, which is of Mountain Limestone, 

 and contains many organic remains, as zoophytes and producta; and you may 

 command one of the most imposing scenes in the district of the lakes; for 

 here you look over the champaign country of the romantic vale of Eden to 

 your right, bounded by the stern Gross Fells; and immediately in front rise 

 and expand before the eager sight — glories of two rival counties, Cumberland 

 and Westmoi'land — fair mountains resting by the lake. This charming scene 

 you view from a scar very similar in appearance to the Yoredale tabular hills. 

 On the left of the scar below, as you look towarJs the lake, is a ghyll, the 

 banks of which are formed of Conglomerate, and here huge blocks or boulder 

 stones are to be seen, one of which must weigh about six tons, of a substance 

 so hard that a moderately-sized hammer will require two or three minutes 

 knocking before a fragment flies ofi". The Conglomerate along the banks of the 

 Eden is of a coarse quality, very largo, and firmly cemented together. This 

 formation can be traced without much difficulty, down the Eden from Appleby. 



The most pleasing locality for observations on this rock I have seen in the 

 north of England, is about a mile from Tebay, where there is a station on 

 the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, a bed rests along the channel of a brook 

 which flows into the Lune. Here are associated, in most beautiful order, the 

 finely-laminated Shale and Conglomerate, which is very hard and closely-cemented. 

 The action of the stream in many places has worn the yielding Shale into 

 oval Basins, and the rough pebbly rock above has fiillen to the running eccen- 

 tricities of ever-flowing and clearest water. In one spot has been scooped out 

 a very complete, and no doubt comfortable, bath; large enough to admit a 

 person of middle stature, as a slipper bath would do. Though more enticino- 

 than the thermge of our large towns, which, not unfrequently, from a combina- 

 tion of circumstances, convey an odour by no means so pleasant as that of a 

 pellucid running pool, warmed by the vertical rays of the sun. 



The Old Rod Sandstone of the north, as a rock, conveys to an amateur 

 geologist much that is curious; but it is not so attractive as other formations, 

 from the organic remains being rubbed to pieces as it may be supposed. Yet 

 its near affinity to the cold-looking (though only in winter,) chain of the 

 Silurian hills, and the warm relationship which it bears to the great carbo- 

 niferous group, give pleasure in visiting the modest surface of country which 

 it occupies in the north-west of England. 



• Its younger companion, the New Red Sandstone, is interposed in the great 

 carboniferous chain, causing a journey of several miles until you arrive at 

 Hartside and the region about Crossfell. You may here look from an emi- 

 nence over the vale of Eden, (New Red,) and wonder how that vast plain 

 came there, separating the limestone of Motherby, from a family group which 

 form the neck and back-bone of England, beginning at Crossfell. 



Keswichj June iith.y 18o2. 



