aS ee Ae 
we 
17 
which had no communication with the sea, and which was main- 
tained as a lake or series of lakes through subsidence of an 
unusually local character. The earlier boundaries of the old lake 
are not easy to define, probably for the reason that much of its 
original margin covered areas that have since been elevated into 
uplands, and the shore deposits have consequently been removed 
therefrom. I fail entirely to discover any connection between the 
present distribution of the uplands and the relief of the land at 
the time when even the oldest of the strata were formed. The 
Pennine Fault and the minor faults accompanying it had certainly 
been formed, and the rocks had been extensively denuded after- 
wards into a somewhat more irregular surface than is usual in such 
cases; but I doubt very much whether there is now in existence a 
single mountain, or even hill, which can be proved to have been 
such when the Lower New Red was formed. (Geologists hardly 
need to be reminded that anticlinals very rarely coincide with 
elevations of the surface.) Judging by the distribution of the 
deposits, a shallow trough ranged through the area known as 
Stainmoor, and thence north-westward past Appleby, across the 
Solway and up the present valley of the Nith. At the north-west 
end the trough rapidly shallowed, while in the opposite direction 
it reached its greatest depth near Appleby. The general litho- 
logical character of the rocks deposited in this trough points to 
shallow water and unusually saline conditions having obtained 
within the basin throughout the whole period when the Lower 
New Red was formed. This appears to indicate that a steady 
downward folding of the surface was progressing along the line— 
the areas adjoining probably undergoing concurrent upheaval, in 
the same manner as that obtaining during the formation of the 
Old Red Series in Scotland described by Sir Archibald Geikie.* 
The rocks laid down in this basin consisted normally of quartz 
sand, associated with a small percentage of kaolinized felspar. 
But of mica in any form soever the Lower New Red as a rule 
contains none. Nor does it as a rule contain any shales. The 
sands are strongly false-bedded towards the west in general, and 
* Proc. Roy. Soc, Edin, 
2 
