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cuttings. There is a saying that every valley has its own peculiar 

 drift, composed for the most part of materials torn from the parent 

 rocks at higher levels in the same valley, always, however, having 

 some extraneous material brought from a distance. 



The valley of Saint Bees is an exception to some extent, 

 inasmuch as a very considerable amount of the debris at Sea Mill 

 has been brought from about Cleator Moor, Frizington, Weddi- 

 car, &c., these neighbourhoods having other valley lines of their 

 own. The deposits near Sea Mill, on botli sides of the forest, are 

 of the roughest character imaginable, great blocks (both rounded 

 and angular) of coal measure sandstones, AVhitehaven sandstone, 

 Permian conglomerate, Saint Bees sandstone, shale, limestone 

 (both Carboniferous and Permian), and almost every other 

 conceivable description of rock, all accumulated in the most 

 promiscuous manner. A peculiar kind of rock is found in the 

 debris called Mussel Bed. This material is probably brought 

 from about the Griffin Inn at Frizington, where it crops out. It 

 forms one of the measures of the Cleator Moor coal field. At 

 Wyndham Pit (now closed), within the yard of the Hematite 

 Company, the bed is forty-three fathoms below the surface, and 

 about seven fathoms below the Main Band of Coal. It is ift. gin. 

 thick, and is a calcareous and ferruginous deposit, composed of 

 shells resembling the fresh, water mussel or unio. This was at one 

 time smelted at the Cleator Moor Works. It contains about 

 twenty -five per cent, of iron. Some of the rock fragments have 

 the well known glacial grooves or striations on them. 



Leaving Sea Mill, and proceeding towards the north along 

 the sea cliff, we find the drift becoming finer and milder in type. 

 It is, however, a strange agglomeration — clay, sand, and gravel, 

 derived chiefly from its own valley line, shot down anywhere, and 

 in any form, and in places partly rearranged by water in short 

 lines. At the time of deposit, an immense amount of rounded 

 coal has drifted, in such abundance as to form beds one foot in 

 thickness and upwards, I have found this to hold good at New 

 House Brow, in the Ehen valley. 



During this last winter, after the heavy tides had partly wasted 



