190 Country Rambles. 



the little cavillers in the end, however plausible they may 

 make their case at starting. 



Before quitting this beautiful valley it will be salutary 

 to pause for a moment upon its geological history, since, 

 with the single exception of that part of the Mersey 

 valley which lies between Didsbury and Cheadle, it is 

 the newest part of our neighbourhood. The date, that 

 is to say, is the nearest preceding that of the first occu- 

 pation of the British Islands by mankind. The great 

 ridges of Kinder Scout, Glossop, and Greenfield are 

 immensely more ancient than any of the exposed or 

 superficial parts of the country threaded by the Mersey 

 at Cheadle, and by the Irwell below Prestwich. With 

 the remainder of the chain of hills to which the Green- 

 field summits belong, those great ridges form the eastern 

 margin of an enormous and very irregular stone basin, 

 tilted up in such a way that the opposite or western edge 

 is concealed far below the surface of the ground, nobody 

 can tell exactly where, but in the direction of the Irish 

 Sea, perhaps under it, far away beyond Southport and the 

 sandhills. It is within or upon the inner surface of this 

 great basin that all the other South Lancashire rocks and 

 strata have their seat. In different portions of its huge 

 lap are deposited the Coal strata (themselves often much 

 elevated above the level on which the deposit took place, 

 and this at various periods); then, in ascending order, 

 there are deposits called "Permian;* above these, in 



* On account of their correspondence with others, geologically 

 the same, very extensively present in the portion of Central and 

 Eastern Russia called Perm. 



