19 



clayey seams in the Drift are often very thin and variable, and 

 probably absent altogether in certain places, much of the rainfall, 

 no doubt, gets down to the underlying rocks sooner or later. The 

 greatest thickness known to be attained by the Glacial Drift is one 

 hundred and ninety-eight feet six inches, in a boring at Kelsick 

 Moss. At Bowness on Solway its thickness was forty-one feet ; 

 at Lynehow, below Westlinton, thirty-six feet three inches ; at 

 Garlands Lunatic Asylum, twenty-eight feet. In these figures a 

 variable amount of soil, etc., is included. It will be noticed that 

 the thickness at Kelsick Moss is quite exceptional, the average of 

 the three other borings being about thirty-five feet. And the 

 absence of the underlying rocks in the various railway cuttings 

 near Carlisle points to a thickness of Glacial Drift that may exceed 

 an average of thirty-five feet, but can hardly fall short of it. And 

 while at Kelsick Moss the beds to a depth of ninety-two feet are 

 chiefly sandy or gravelly, the Drift thence to one hundred and 

 ninety-eight feet six inches (the bottom) is mainly clayey. But at 

 Garlands the twenty-eight feet of Drift is made up of twenty-six 

 feet sand and gravel above, and two feet of clay beneath. We 

 may now turn from the Glacial Drift and its shallow wells to the 

 underlying rocks of Permian, Triassic, and Liassic age, and their 

 water-bearing capacities. 



The lowest bed of the Carlisle Basin is the St. Bees Sandstone. 

 It occupies (below more or less Drift) a belt of country of variable 

 breadth between Maryport and Allonby, north of Aspatria, south 

 of Wigton, around Dalston, Wetheral, and Brampton. North of 

 Brampton it may be seen in the Hether Burn near Hethersgill, 

 the Lyne about the Muckle Linn, above Kirklinton Hall, and the 

 Esk above Scots Dyke railway bridge. In Dumfriesshire it is 

 visible about Kirkpatrick, Annan, and at Tordoff Point on the 

 Solway. The dip of the St. Bees Sandstone is northerly between 

 Maryport and Dalston (on the south), more westerly about 

 Wetheral and Brampton, south-westerly from the Hether Burn to 

 the Esk, and southerly on the Scottish side of the Border. And 

 there can be no doubt that could we see the dip of the St. Bees 

 Sandstone on the western side of the Basin (now beneath the 



