73 
THE HISTORY OF THE EDEN AND OF SOME 
RIVERS ADJACENT. 
By J. G. GOODCHILD, H.M. GrotocicaL SuRVEY. 
Based upon an Address given before the Carlisle Society, at Nunnery Walks, 
in August, 1880.* 
AFTER giving an outline of the various natural processes, which, 
separately, or in various combinations, have given rise to the 
present features of the earth’s surface, the paper treated in some 
detail of the three old plains of denudation to which most of the 
larger features of the topography of the North of England are 
capable of being referred. These plains are (1) the First Plain, 
or that fashioned out of the Older Paleozoic rocks, whereon the 
Carboniferous strata were spread out. (2) The Second Plain, 
which formed the (somewhat irregular) surface that received the 
‘New Red. (3) The Third Plain, represented by the denuded 
* The original address was entitled ‘‘An Outline of the History of the River 
Eden.”’ A few days after it was delivered, reports, containing the chief points 
_ in it, were published in several of the Cumberland and Westmorland news- 
papers. Reprints of the fullest of these reports were sent to many of our 
leading geologists, as well as to the principal scientific institutions ; so that the 
main conclusions stated in the article referred to, were pretty generally known, 
and were actually published, years ago. Being urged by several members of 
the Cumberland and Westmorland Association to insert the paper in our Zyans- 
_ actions, I have thought it better under the circumstances to re-cast it entirely, 
rather than to re-print it in its original form. The introductory matter has 
~ been given in abstract, and some additional passages have been added. But it 
will be seen that the arguments and conclusions remain as they were in the 
“edition” published in 1880, 
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