‘ 
, 
; 
7 
Lias would be the Rheetics ; and below these, if any Red Rocks 
are present at all, should occur the Keuper Marls. ‘To this general 
rule no exception has yet been proved in Britain. Little surprise 
was felt, therefore, when a borehole put down at Abbey ‘Town west 
of the Lias outlier passed through several hundred feet of Red 
Marls identical in character with the Keuper Marls, and containing 
both gypsum and rock salt, At the bottom of the bore hole sand- 
stone exactly like that of the upper part of the St. Bees Sandstone 
was reached, ‘These sandstone beds, allowing water to percolate 
through them pretty freely, gave rise to an artesian spring, which 
at first rose through the Keuper Marls fresh and sweet, but which 
became very saline on its passage to the surface through the beds 
of salt. Around Carlisle itself the very lowest beds of the Keuper 
Marls* still remain, and these are seen to overlie in several places 
a group of sandstones whose colour ranges from tile red, through 
saffron, to nearly white. Near the top these sandstones are locally 
full of small cavities, resembling those formed by gas bubbles, and 
in several other respects the zone where these occur forcibly recalls 
the Waterstones of Cheshire, which occupy the same relative posi- 
tion in the Red Rocks of that part of England. The general aspect 
of the sandstones below again reminds one of the higher beds of 
the Trias in the basin of the Mersey, and the resemblance is further 
borne out by the tendency of these Carlisle, or Kirklinton, Sand- 
stones to rapid changes of colour within short distances. On the 
River Lyne, at Westlinton, beds of Kirklinton Sandstone, or of 
strata undistinguishable from that rock, are seen interbedded with 
Sandstone of the normal type seen at St. Bees Head, in such a 
manner as to suggest that no hard and fast line between them has 
any existence, Putting this statement into another form, it may 
be said that the highest beds of the St. Bees Sandstone present 
bright red phases in many localities, and that these tile red strata 
are subject to rapid local changes to brick-red, ochreous, or even to 
white. 
Now the Kirklinton Sandstone has been unanimously recognized 
* My friend, Mr Holmes, who mapped the Carlisle district does not yet see” 
his way to accept this view, which is that adopted by the Geological Survey, 
