OF THE COUNTY OF STAFFORD. 239 
and lifted those on the E. side up into the air, while those on the 
W. remain buried at an unknown depth below the plain of Cheshire. 
If we compare the position of the rocks (such as it appears from 
even these brief notices) on the western side of the Penine chain,* 
with that of the same beds on the eastern, we shall be struck with 
the remarkable preponderance in the magnitude of the faults and 
dislocations of the former over those of the latter. This violently 
fractured state of the rocks on the western side of the district, and 
their comparatively undisturbed condition over the eastern portion, 
is true for the whole of this great range, and the ridge of Mole Cop 
is but a minor representation of Cross Fell. 
In deducing from the examination of its structure a geological 
history of the district, the same remarks will apply to N. Stafford- 
shire as to Derbyshire. We have, however, in Staffordshire, more 
striking evidence of the period intervening between the formation 
of the carboniferous system and the upper part of that of the new 
red sandstone, and of the great forces, both of dislocation and degra- 
dation, which were at work in the interval, than can be seen in 
Derbyshire. ‘The fact of the new red sandstone running up the 
valley of the Dove and lying for several miles along that of the 
Churnet, following their windings, and resting with its horizontal 
beds against their broken and eroded banks, shews in the most strik- 
ing manner that the carboniferous rocks had been elevated and dis- 
turbed, and these very valleys had been scooped out in them, before 
the deposition of the new red sandstone. The valleys seem, indeed, 
as if they had been arms of the sea running, like some of the Scotch 
lochs, into the dry land,t during the new red sandstone period, 
before which they must have been deeper than they are at present. 
During this period they were filled with new red sandstone up to a 
certain height, which at some subsequent period has itself suffered 
from an eroding cause, and the beds of the present rivers have been 
thus formed. These facts are important, as teaching us to look to 
a very ancient period for the beginning, at least, of those deep dales 
and ravines which cut through the mountain limestone and other 
hard rocks, and whose erosion seems impossible by any forces with 
* The Penine chain is a term given by Phillips and Conybeare to the 
great central ridge of hilly country that runs from Derbyshire and Stafford- 
shire to the borders of Scotland. 
+ It is by no means meant positively to assert that the hills of Stafford- 
shire and Derbyshire were dry land during this period, though several argu- 
ments might be brought forward to render such an idea probable. 
