18 
that, too, overa very large area. The materials, therefore, must have 
travelled from east to west, and the land lay, consequently, to the 
east.’ Possibly the Carboniferous uplands at present intervening 
between the eastern and the western outcrops of the Red Rocks 
in the north of England may represent in a modified form part of 
the land whence this material was derived. But the sand swept 
into the lake by the old rivers flowing westward was not the only 
material. Some, at least, of the limestone exposed by prior 
denudation in the areas on the eastern border of Westmorland, 
was transported by floating ice into the old lake in the form of 
angular boulders, often of large size; and, as the ice melted, its 
rocky burden was dropped promiscuously amongst the ordinary 
sediments swept into the lake by the rivers. Now and then a 
veritable glaciated boulder was dropped in this way. One such 
was discovered during a visit to the Brockram at Appleby by the 
Geologists’ Association in 1888. In connection with the Lower 
New Red, another remarkable feature calls for notice. The 
absence of remains of plants of any kind is almost as striking a 
feature as that of animals. Possibly the explanation of this may 
be that the waters of the old lake were so much saturated with 
the sulphate of lime, that any vegetable remains swept into the 
lake were rapidly decomposed. Such an explanation may serve 
to account for the presence of bituminous matter in other strata 
formed in closed bodies of water, such, for example, as the Caith- 
ness Flags.* Certain it is that until we reach beds high up in the 
Penrith Sandstone, plant remains, or other fossils of any kind are 
quite unknown. There is, it is true, a bed of lignite near the very 
top of the Penrith Sandstone two or three miles to the east of the 
town of that name, but even here the exception proves the rule ; 
for the general character of the upper beds of the Penrith Sand- 
stone points to diminished salinity during this stage, as if a more 
rapid lowering of the outlet of the lake had begun to sweeten the 
waters. The sandstones cease to be prevalently red, mica begins 
to appear, shales are interstratified with the sandstones, and finally, 
*Itis possible that the Lothian Oil Shales derived their valuable organic 
constituents from much the same kind of source, and in the same way. 
