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them date back from the earliest period of creation, and that they 
will remain unchanged and unchangeable to the end of all time. 
I do not now intend to enter upon the history of the changes of 
opinion that have led up to the views now commonly received ; 
most of us are well aware that Hutton and Playfair, Lyell, Ramsay, 
Jukes, Geikie, and others, have done much to place the subject 
before us in its true light ; while, from the members of the Cum- 
berland Association we have had a contribution on the “Physical 
History of the Lake District,” by Mr. Ward, which appeared some 
years ago inthe pages of ‘Science Gossip”; and we have more 
recently a paper by our Association Secretary, Mr. Kendall, dealing 
in the same way with West Cumberland, which has appeared in 
Part V. of our “Transactions.” Mr. Ward confined his attention 
chiefly to the area occupied by the Older Palozoic rocks of the 
Lake District, which alone furnished matter for an article of some 
length. I propose to supplement his observations by offering a 
few remarks upon such points in the history of our present sur- 
roundings as seem to present features likely to prove of general 
interest. 
THE HISTORY AND THE PHYSICAL RELATIONS OF THE ROCKS, 
Most of us are already well aware that the rocks around us form 
part of the Carboniferous series—rocks so called because the one 
feature that distinguishes them as a whole from the rocks above 
and below them, here, at least, is the occurrence of beds of coal, 
which, in one part of the kingdom or the other, may be found 
occurring at almost all horizons, from the top of the Coal Measures 
down to the very base of the series. The particular members that 
come before our notice on the present occasion belong to the lower 
part of the series, or Carboniferous Limestone. These rocks, with 
some few exceptions, were accumulated here, and over greater part 
of the British Isles, chiefly in the clear water of the open sea. The 
limestones consist very largely of the calcareous remains of the 
marine animals of that remote period, imbedded in a calcareous 
paste, which binds all the fossils together into compact rock. But 
in no case [ have yet seen do any of these represent old coral reefs. 
