14 
Bunter Marls lie indifferently upon any one member of the series 
below, and at their base there is often a bed of conglomerate. 
Here then, and here alone, can any such line be drawn between 
the Upper part of the Series and the Lower. If any other geolo- 
gist, after a full and careful consideration of the facts seen on the 
ground, is able on stratigraphical grounds to indicate any horizon 
where a better line can be drawn, he would be doing good service 
to geological science by pointing out that horizon as soon as 
convenient to himself. I have sought such an horizon for years 
under all the advantages afforded by working on the Geological 
Survey, but have never found it. It may as well be mentioned 
also that no one else has been able to do so either ; for those who 
look into the literature of the subject will see that since the 
St. Bees Sandstone was referred to the “Upper Permian,” geologists 
seem to have tacitly agreed amongst themselves never even to 
make an attempt at drawing a base line for the Trias in Cumber- 
land. ‘ 
If, on the other hand, we agree to take all the beds above the 
horizon of the Magnesian Limestone as Trias, as Sir Archibald 
Geikie has decided to do, then we all know where to find the line 
between the Upper New Red and the Lower, and we not only 
simplify the classification very greatly, but we bring the grouping 
of the whole of the true New Red Series into harmony all over 
the kingdom. 
DYAS OR LOWER NEW RED, AND PERMIAN, USED IN A 
RESTRICTED SENSE. 
A change of views of the nature here indicated is sure to meet 
with opposition from many, especially as it involves a somewhat 
important change in classification. There have not been wanting 
instances, therefore, of geologists who are anxious to place it on 
record that, in the year 1892, they still clung to the beliefs of their 
fathers so far as the classification of the Red Rocks is concerned, 
and who still also persist in grouping the Permian with the Car- 
boniferous, and in widely separating the group so united from the 
Trias, The reasons for doing so are twofold. First, and most 
