87 



affords the only available evidence. We have seen, however, 

 that buff, besides being a characteristic Carboniferous colour, is 

 occasionally Permian. But in the St. Bees Sandstone the buff 

 stone is in very small quantity compared with the red, and although 

 the upper beds of the Kirklinton Sandstone at and west of Carlisle 

 are mainly light grey or whitish, that rock does not in our district 

 directly overlie Carboniferous beds, except in the cliff opposite 

 Canobie church, and there it is brick-red. Whether we have to 

 deal with the St. Bees- or the Kirklinton Sandstone, the red is 

 always brick-red, and not pinkish or purple-grey. The colour- 

 distinction thus holds good between the whole of the Carboniferous 

 rocks on the one hand, and all the overlying red or mainly red 

 rocks — call them Permian and Triassic or Poikilitic,* as you will 

 — on the other. 



My colleagues of the Geological Survey could bring forward 

 precisely similar evidence, as to the distinctive colours of these 

 rocks, from their own districts. But my object here is simply to 

 record what I have seen myself, in the hope that it may prove 

 useful to local observers, and prevent either a waste of time in 

 searching for evidence where none exists, or its neglect where it 

 abounds. 



* It is probable that the whole of these red rocks will shortly be united 

 together under some comprehensive name such as Poiklitic, a term proposed 

 originally by Conybeare. 



