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probability partly on the Gypseous Shales, partly on the Kirklinton 

 Sandstone and Slanwix Marls, we have the bands of limestone and 

 shale belonging to the Lias formation. The limestones are more 

 or less permeable, and the shales impermeable. 



It must be evident that an artesian well would be sunk to most 

 advantage along a line ranging through the centre of the Basin ; 

 in other words, from Abbey Town through Aikton, Orton, and 

 Grinsdale to Westlinton. For along this line we might expect to 

 find the St. Bees Sandstone containing the largest quantity of 

 water. The salt spring at Kelsick Moss, near Abbey Town, 

 evidently derives its water from the St. Bees Sandstone at the 

 bottom of the borehole, about one hundred feet of that rock having 

 been pierced, But the salt and other saline ingredients are as 

 evidently derived from the overlying Gypseous Shales through 

 which the borehole passes. Salt and gypsum are both deposited, 

 under certain conditions, as chemical precipitates in lakes, and are 

 often, perhaps usually, found associated together, as in this case. 

 Proceeding eastward along this central line, it is doubtful at what 

 depth St. Bees Sandstone would be found about Great Orton. I 

 have already stated that the Lias was found to be two hundred 

 and ten feet thick in the old boring, and I may add that the 

 thickness of the drift at the surface was eighteen feet. But though 

 at Great Orton we have the Lias formation in addition to the 

 Gypseous Shales, it is probable that the Drift and Gypseous Shales 

 are both so much thinner at Orton than at Abbey Town, as to 

 bring the top of the St. Bees Sandstone much nearer the surface 

 at the first-named than at the latter place. For, instead of nearly 

 two hundred feet of Drift and seven hundred feet of Gypseous 

 Shales, at Great Orton we may have an average of perhaps thirty 

 feet of Drift, above two hundred and ten feet of Lias, and two 

 hundred feet or less of Gypseous Shales. Of course this estimate 

 of the thickness of the Gypseous Shales is only a conjecture, but 

 they must thin away very rapidly towards the centre and the east 

 of the Basin. Still going eastward we enter the region in which 

 the Kirklinton Sandstone underlies the Lias, and before reaching 

 the Eden at Grinsdale the northern outcrop of the Lias is passed. 



