38 



people do not seem to be aware that the very top beds of our 

 Penrith Sandstone also occur in Durham below the Magnesian 

 Limestone, just as they occur here. What we really get is a great 

 wedge of Magnesian Limestone with its thin edge pointing towards 

 the west coast of England, which wedge has been afterwards broken 

 through the middle, partly over the line of the Great Faults, by the 

 subsequent upheaval of the Pennine Chain. 



I have entered into some detail upon these controverted points, 

 because they have an important bearing upon the past history of 

 Edenside, and because they are specially important in relation to 

 the history I am attempting to elucidate. 



So far, then, I think we may venture to form some kind of idea 

 as to what the old surface was like. Most, if not all, the present 

 surface features then had no existence. Hills and valleys there 

 may have been — indeed must have been — but at the period we are 

 now considering we have no indubitable evidence of their existence 

 where our chief mountain masses now are. 



We have next to inquire what rivers existed hereabouts at this 

 period. Here, again, I am compelled to dissent from the com- 

 monly-received opinions. It seems to be generally assumed that, 

 if we find any one of these newer deposits occupying the bottom 

 of what is now a valley, that the rock is there because it was 

 originally deposited in an old valley, which is being re-exposed by 

 the gradual removal of the old deposit. There must, of course, 

 be a great many instances of rock deposited along long lines of 

 depression, which may often represent old river- valleys ; but in the 

 majority of the cases that have come under my notice the facts 

 would be correctly expressed by saying that it is the valley that 

 lies in the Red Rocks, and not that it is the Red Rocks that lie in the 

 valley. The valley is there now because there is a soft upper group 

 of rocks bent into a downfold along with a lower group of rocks of 

 a more durable character. All the rocks, upper soft, and lower 

 hard alike, have been bent into a series of folds, which have after- 

 wards been planed off to a nearly uniform surface. Along the 

 parts where the softer rock has been folded in, the surface wastes 

 somewhat faster than it does elsewhere, and, as a consequence, 



