116 Prof, Hughes, Criticism of the Geological [Oct. 30, 



scratched stones running across the soft matrix and included 

 fragments alike. This of course leaves it open to suppose that 

 the Old Red Conglomerate may be the wreck of a glacial drift ; 

 but as we know of no gravel made up of fragments of similar 

 rocks which are not directly or indirectly derived from glacial 

 deposits, the arguments from the shape of the stones &c., cannot, 

 in the present state of our knowledge, go for much." 



Considering the evidence as to the origin of these beds derived 

 from their apparent manner of accumulation and their relation to 

 the beds with which they are associated I observed, " Along the 

 cliffs from near Settle to Ingleton the base of the Mountain 

 Limestone may be traced resting with an almost unbroken line 

 of junction on a planed-off surface of Silurian rocks. About 

 Kirkby Lonsdale, Sedbergh and many other places W. and N., 

 thick masses of Old Red, with its coarse drift-like conglomerate, 

 tell of deep valleys filled with the debris of higher land. On the 

 north side of the Howgill Fells, thick beds of red sandstone and 

 conglomerates, alternating with more or less calcareous shales, 

 are evidently the waste of neighbouring land, resorted on the 

 sea bottom, where numerous corals, shells and other forms of life 

 flourished. 



" Near Horton-in-Ribblesdale, at Gillet Brae, in Beecroft Hall 

 plantation, and near Dove Cote, we have pockets of Old Red 

 conglomerate in the surface of the Silurian rocks, and the 

 Mountain Limestone, with its own peculiar thin beds and con- 

 glomerate, seems to lie on this with an even line, as it does on 

 the Silurian rocks on either side. Fossils occur among the 

 fragments of Silurian, at the very base of the Mountain Lime- 

 stone. Corals seem to have grown in abundance among the 

 loose stones and on the rocky sea bottom, but no fossil have 

 I ever found in those pockets of Old Red. This will apply also 

 to the larger patches near Kirkby Lonsdale, Sedbergh, Kendal, 

 and the foot of Ullswater, as far as we can observe them in those 

 faulted districts. At any rate we may say that the Mountain 

 Limestone never rests on an irregular surface ; all the old valleys 

 and minor inequalities having been filled with coarse conglomerate 

 previous to the deposition of the Carboniferous rocks. 



" It would appear from this that we have in the Basement Bed 

 of the Carboniferous (the so-called Old Red Conglomerate) the 

 remains of an earlier formation lying on the irregular surface of 

 an old continent, and that small patches were preserved in the 

 deeper hollows when the Carboniferous sea planed across it. 



" But, on the other hand, in Hebblethwaite Gill, near Sedbergh, 

 we find the coarse red conglomerate succeeded by shales, grits 

 and earthy limestones ; and in these shales a second bed of red 

 conglomerate occurs, in every respect similar to that below. On 



