20 



Solvvay), we should find it easterly between Annan and AUonby. 

 We have thus in this area a complete basin. On its outer rim the 

 St. Bees Sandstone may be seen at heights of one hundred, two 

 hundred, or even three hundred feet above the sea ; while in its 

 centre, that is, along a line ranging approximately from Abbey 

 Town, through Aikton and Stainton to Westlinton, it is many 

 hundreds of feet below. Consequently all the water percolating 

 through it tends to make its way towards the centre of the basin. 



At Kelsick Moss, near Abbey Town, a boring proves the 

 existence of about seven hundred feet of shales with gypsum below 

 the one hundred and ninety-eight feet six inches of Glacial Drift 

 already mentioned. Below these Gypseous Shales about one 

 hundred feet of St. Bees Sandstone were pierced before the boring 

 ended. These Gypseous Shales are known to exist solely from 

 borings. At Bowness three hundred and sixty-seven feet of 

 Gypseous Shales were found overlying "red stone," in all proba- 

 bility St. Bees Sandstone, in which the boring ended. And the 

 record of an old boring made in the year 1781 by John Brisco of 

 Crofton, near the village of Great Orton, and probably on its 

 north-west side, states that below blue rock (evidently Liassic), 

 "red stone or clay sometimes mixed with veins of white," was 

 found, at a depth of two hundred and twenty-eight feet below the 

 surface. The boring ended after this material had been proved to 

 attain a thickness of one hundred and thirty-two feet. How much 

 thicker it may have been is unknown. North-east of Great Orton, 

 or, as I may say, in the north-eastern half of the Carlisle Basin, 

 these Gypseous Shales give no evidence of their existence. North 

 of the Lias area there is no evidence of anything but Drift between 

 Bowness and Rockcliffe. South of the Lias one might expect to 

 see Gypseous Shales at Cummersdale, in the banks of the Caldew. 

 But both at Rockcliffe and at Cummersdale the rock seen is the 

 Kirklinton Sandstone. This sandstone, in the north-eastern half 

 of the Carlisle Basin, directly overlies that of St. Bees. 



We may now consider the probable reason of this disappearance 

 of the Gypseous Shales. The rock which directly overlies the 

 St. Bees Sandstone in the N.E. — the Kirklinton Sandstone — is 



