37 



that there was a gradual rise of about eight hundred feet in an 

 easterly direction ; but the paucity or the entire absence of any 

 fragments of Precarboniferous origin amongst the coarse detrital 

 rocks in the area referred to, would seem to lend no support to 

 the view that the core of those older rocks was then exposed at 

 the surface in that part of the district. Those rocks were exposed 

 on the north side of the Solway, and also in West Cumberland 

 and North Lancashire at this period ; but I don't think the Car- 

 boniferous rocks had been entirely removed here. 



There is another reason for believing that the Lake mountains 

 do not represent a great fossil island re-exposed by denudation. 

 In no case that has come under my notice does the dip, or present 

 inclination, of the New Red fall short of the amount of inclination 

 of the surface that rises from beneath it in the direction of the 

 Lake District, The angle of the dip denotes the degree of tilting 

 the rocks have undergone since they were laid down. Depress 

 the inclined surface that rises from beneath the New Red sufficiently 

 to level the newer rock, and you would lower the highest mountains 

 of the Lake District far below the sea level. In other words, to 

 tilt the New Red to the angle it now lies at, the whole of the 

 central core of Precarboniferous rocks had to be lifted up four or 

 five thousand feet after the New Red was formed. That is to say, 

 the upheaval that caused the tilting is of later date than the New 

 Red, and the Penrith Sandstone is older than any mountain or 

 valley we can point to from here. 



Some people try to make out that a chain of hills corresponding 

 to our Pennine Chain existed long before our Penrith Sandstone 

 period, and they point, in confirmation of this view, to the great 

 difference in character between the New Red on the one side of 

 England and that on the other. Now this difference is not nearly 

 as great as has been made out. It seems not to be generally 

 known that we have the Magnesian Limestone here also, and that 

 this Magnesian Limestone is thickening in the direction of 

 Durham at such a rate in Edenside itself, that, if it were prolonged 

 a few miles further in that direction would cause it to rival in 

 thickness any Magnesian Limestone occurring in Durham. And 



