32 



what light can we throw upon the physical geography of this region 

 in those remote times ? 



It is perhaps hardly necessary to mention that the rock we now 

 stand on belongs to what is called the New Red Sandstone Series 

 — that series of strata characterised by a prevailing red hue, and 

 that overlies the commercially-important Carboniferous rocks, just 

 as the Old Red Sandstone underlies these. 



The precise position of the rock more particularly under notice 

 on the present occasion, will be made clearer if I here enumerate the 

 various members of the New Red Series in the order we have them 

 developed in the Eden Valley. The highest member of the New Red 

 here is formed by the great group of red shales that the city of Carlisle 

 stands upon. These are fairly well exposed in the bank of the Eden 

 just below Stanwix; and on that account Ilast year (1880) gave them 

 the name of the Stanwix Marls, a name that has since been pretty 

 generally adopted by geologists. These Stanwix Marls are suc- 

 ceeded by a considerable thickness of red sandstones, which are 

 locally of a bright brick-red in their upper portion ; though they 

 are more typically represented, as Professor Harkness and others 

 have pointed out, by the duller red sandstone that forms so much 

 of the beautiful scenery of Corby Walks. This is the St. Bees 

 Sandstone, a rock that plays an important part in the geology of 

 the Basin of the Solway. The St. Bees Sandstone passes down- 

 ward into a group of red shales, usually associated with more or 

 less gypsum, which is worked at Coat Hill, Eden Lacy, Kirkby 

 Thore, and elsewhere in these parts. Then comes a group of 

 strata characterised by being not red. The Magnesian Limestone 

 belongs to the upper portion of this set ; the lower, or Plant Bed 

 Series, agrees in both litholo^ical character and geological position 

 with the Marl Slate of the north eastern part of England. Below 

 these, and forming the basal group of the series, comes another 

 group of sandstones, again red in colour, like those above. This 

 is the Penrith Sandstone, the rock we now stand upon, which was 

 so named from the town where it may best be seen. We owe this 

 name to Professor Harkness, who was the first to place the New 

 Red Rocks of Edenside in anything like their true order. 



