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Dale Beck, below Renwick, flowed in earlier times through a 
channel consisting of rocks whose lateral waste under the action of 
the weather proceeded at a much higher rate than the vertical 
lowering of the surface effected by Dale Beck itself. Consequently, 
before the New Red was reached, the old banks of the stream 
wasted so fast as to be removed by subaerial denudation almost as 
fast as they were formed. When the Third Plain supporting these 
newer rocks was laid bare, the stream found itself in a channel 
whose ratio of lateral to vertical waste was much more nearly equal. 
Along the Escarpment the course of the stream has lain, for a very 
long period, through rocks whose lateral waste is lower still. Con- 
sequently much more of the sides of the valley there has been left. 
The valley of Dale Beck above Nunnery Walks would have been 
at the present day well on to two thousand feet in depth, and 
several miles in width, if the rocks it traversed there had been of 
as durable a nature as they are along the upper part of its course. 
The Eden, again, supplies another illustration of the same fact. 
At Nunnery Walks, and for some distance above and below, its 
channel happens to be somewhat larger than usual. But if its 
valley here be compared with that at Wetheral, a marked difference 
is at once apparent. ‘There we find the river flowing in a square- 
cut groove, whose sides descend to the river-bed abruptly from the 
general level of the Carlisle Plain, without any marked declivities 
intervening. This comparative shallowness of the valley itself 
characterises the course of the Eden from its mouth up to Nateby, 
above Kirkby Stephen. Beyond that point the course of the river 
lies through Carboniferous rocks, tough and durable indeed as 
compared with most of the New Red. Yet although the volume 
of water flowing here is usually so small that one can generally 
ford the river without serious difficulty, the valley wherein it flows 
is one of the finest in Westmorland; it is three miles or more 
from side to side, and in places well on to two thousand feet in 
depth. 
Take the Eamon, one of the most important tributaries of the 
Eden, as an illustration of another feature of interest, intimately 
connected with the history of the Eden. This we will trace from 
