THE AGE OF THE PENINE CHAIN. 



Prof. Hull stated his belief that the Penine Chain was elevated into land 

 during the deposition of the earlier Permian strata. In 1868, however, the 

 learned professor had come to the conclusion that this earhest upheaval 

 took place between the close of the Permian period and the commence- 

 ment of the Trias, " that it belonged to that period of general strati- 

 graphical disturbance wbicb marked the close of the Palaeozoic age." As 

 a rule geologists appear to have been content to follow in the wake of so 

 high an authority. Several years ago my local rock studies led me to 

 believe that the Penine Chain was older and not younger than the 

 Magnesian Limestone, and later observations have tended to fortify me 

 in that opinion. Before considering the evidence in favour of this 

 hypothesis, let us in the first place examine what is to be said for the 

 opposite view. The chief, if not the only item cited by Prof. Hull in 

 support of an after-Porrnian upheaval, is the supposed identity in origin 

 (in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire) of two important hues of 

 fracture known as the Anticlinal Fault and the Red Rock Fault. Prof. 

 Hull's argument is somewhat as follows.* The Anticlinal Fault and the 

 Red Rock Fault run meridionally (approximately) parallel with each 

 other and with the Penine Chain, therefore all three were the results of 

 a common earth-movement. The Anticlinal Fault which runs from 

 Colne on the north to Leek on the south, near Leek, passes under New 

 Red Sandstone (Bunter conglomerate) without faulting it, therefore this 

 common movement was pre-Triassic ; the Red Rock Fault, (an important 

 fracture running parallel with the Anticlinal Fault from Staleybridge 

 southwards, and forming the boundary between the Carboniferous and 

 more recent formations from Bredbury and Poynton, in Cheshire, south- 

 wards for several miles,) near Stockport, faults Permian against 

 Carboniferous beds, therefore this common movement was post-Permian. 

 But the same Red Rock Fault elsewhere, viz., near Macclesfield and Con- 

 gleton, displaces New Red Sandstone (Upper Keuper) rocks, and it might, 

 therefore, be inferred that this fault was (wholly) of later date than the Trias. 

 To evade this difficulty Professor Hull assumes that the Red Rock 

 Fault is the result of two independent displacements, the first of which 

 took place before the Permian, the second after the Trias. To this style 

 of reasoning I object, in the first place, that it is unphilosophical to base 

 an argument on a mere assumption ; in the next place, that, on the 

 hypothesis of two movements for the Red Rock Fault, the failure of 

 participation in the second of such movements by the Anticlinal Fault 

 shows that faults may run parallel to one another and to great anticlinals 

 without their being contemporaneous ; and lastly, that on the assump- 

 tion that the Red Rock Fault, the Anticlinal Fault and the Penine 

 Chain were coeval, and that the Red Rock Fault has undergone a second 

 displacement, there is still no evidence against its having been the 

 second, instead of the first of such movements, that for the first time 

 faulted the Permians near Stockport, and that an earlier displacement 

 of the Red Rock Fault, together with the Anticlinal Fault, and the 

 elevation of the Penine Chain, took place before the Permian epoch. 



"Quarterly Journal ueological Society," vol. xxiv., p. 323. 



