6 
Limestone occurs, there would be nothing to prove, in that case, 
that this view was not the correct one. As a matter of fact, this is 
what geologists have actually done. First, the whole series (together 
with a large area of red-stained Carboniferous rocks) was classed 
with the New Red. Later on, Phillips and Sedgwick referred the 
strata above the Magnesian Limestone to the Trias, leaving all 
below (still with some red-stained Carboniferous rocks) as Permian. 
Then, when the notion gained credence that the Trias and the 
Permian must be separated by an unconformity, another change 
was made, and the St. Bees Sandstone (2,000 feet in thickness, as 
we now know) was put back into the Permian, for no other reason 
than that no unconformity was visible between this thick mass of 
sandstone and the beds below. Years afterwards came the detailed 
examination of the rocks by the Geological Survey, in the course of 
which facts came to light which seemed to warrant a return to the 
older classification. These facts the Director General of the Survey 
fully considered, and, after giving the matter ample consideration, 
he decided to go back to the older classification, and again to 
group all the beds above the horizon of the Magnesian Limestone 
with the Upper New Red or Trias. This has accordingly been 
done upon all the one-inch maps published since ; and the classi- 
fication of the Cumberland Red Rocks is now adapted, not only 
to the facts observable within the district, but is brought into har- 
mony with the classification generally adopted outside of that area. 
REASONS FOR THE CLASSIFICATION ADOPTED BY THE GEOLOGICAL 
SURVEY. 
As the newer view has been objected to by a few persons 
(although it has been accepted by those fully acquainted with the 
rocks in question) it may be well to go over the facts in somewhat 
fuller detail in order that the reasons for the course adopted may 
be understood by those who are interested in questions of this 
kind. 
Beginning at the top beds, we find the Lias occurring as a small 
.outlier in the area west of Carlisle. Judging by the facts observed 
elsewhere, the rocks we should expect to meet with next below the 
