814 



remaining perfectly distinct. In short, the remains of a ploughed 

 field covered up by blown sand, were exposed to view at this part 

 of the coast, a striking piece of evidence, pointing to the much 

 greater extension of the land westward at no very remote period. 

 So few are the sections on the Solway, and so sudden and unfore- 

 seen the changes on its shore — as the first years of the fourteenth 

 century bear witness — that the [fact of competent observers like 

 Dr. Leitch being on the spot to record points of so much interest] 

 is a matter on which we may well congratulate ourselves. 



T. V. H. 



SiLLOTH New Dock. — Mr. J. G. Goodchild has kindly sent 

 me notes of his observations of the strata exposed in the excavations 

 for Silloth New Dock, which he visited with Dr. Leitch and Rev. 

 Mr. Williams last April. The beds seen consisted of alternations 

 of sand and well-rounded, false-bedded gravel, resting on a chocolate 

 clay. The clay contained both local and far-derived boulders, 

 CrifFel Granite, Ennerdale Syenite, Grassmoor grits; tuffs and lavas 

 in abundance. Scarcely any St. John's Quartz-Felsjte was seen. 

 The mammalian remains {Bos pritnigetiius, Sic ) were found at or 

 near the base of the sand and gravel. This upper formation also 

 contained the remains of recent littoral shells, the genera Littorina, 

 Ostrea, Trophon, Fusus, Cardium, Tellina, Peden and Mactra 

 being all represented. The chocolate clay beneath was evidently 

 of much earlier date, and belonged to the Glacial Drift, the sand 

 and gravel being an upheaved recent marine deposit or raised 

 beach. Mr. Goodchild noticed that the thin layers of sand and 

 gravel making up the raised beach all sloped downwards from the 

 sea towards the land, the direction of the current depositing them 

 being thus indicated. The range of this raised beach is shown in 

 the map illustrating the physical geography of north-west Cumber- 

 land, Trans. Cumb. Assoc, Part vi., 1880-81. 



T. V. H. 



