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Faults should be lifted higher than those on the other. The base 
of the Cretaceous rocks here was raised to only a few hundred 
feet above the sea level on one side of this great line of weakness, 
while on the other it rose in places to a higher level by more than 
two thousand feet. Thus the last great movement of the Pennine 
Fault was caused. And thus, and at that time, were upheaved the 
massifs out of which denudation has since carved our valleys and 
dales, leaving the portions undenuded as our hills and mountains. 
It cannot be too often repeated that, not a single mountain now 
existing as such had come into existence at the period we are now 
now considering. In every case the mountains of North Western 
England are due to the unequal lowering of the old plateaux, 
whose history has just been sketched ; and this has been effected 
entirely by the conjoined action of rain and rivers, acting slowly 
and gently through untold millions of years. It is also important to 
remember that the rivers in every case are older than the mountains. 
Even the Eden itself is probably older than the Alps, the Hima- 
layas, the Andes, Vesuvius, Etna, or almost any mountain now 
existing as such. It is not intended, of course, that the vocks 
forming the mountains around Edenside are not of great antiquity 
—quite the contrary—but we are dealing with their form, and not 
with their history as a whole. The great depression of Edenside 
(the so-called Eden Valley) had no existence until much later. 
The excavation of that marked feature of Cumberland and West- 
morland, and consequently, the development of the steep edge of 
the Carboniferous uplands to the east of it, did not even commence 
until a very late period in the geological history of the North of 
England. It is, in fact, in process of further development at this 
very moment. So far from Edenside having always been an area of 
depression, the anomalous behaviour of the rivers in and around 
it can only be explained on the supposition that, at the time those 
rivers began to flow the whole of that area was filled to a higher 
level than any of the present mountain tops by rocks of some 
uniform character, which formed a surface whose highest ground 
rose far above that of any of the areas adjoining.* The central 
* Tt does not follow that the absolute elevation of this part was then much 
higher than at present ; but some part of the present elevation is almost certainly 
due to movements of later date than most of the principal valleys. 
