T. V. Holmes — The Whitehaven Sandstone. 405 



Alps, to my mind, increase the pi-obability that they, and the 

 calc-schists and mica-schists associated with them, are much more 

 ancient than any of these — in other words, that they very probably 

 belong to the Archaean era. 



IV. — Notes on the Whitehaven Sandstone. 

 By T. V. Holmes, F.G.S. 



IT is not surprising that the earlier geological writers on the 

 district north and west of the Silurian and other hills of Lake- 

 land, and between the Kiver Caldew and the Solway, should have 

 arrived at diverse conclusions as to the affinities of certain sandstones 

 and shales of reddish or purple-grey tint, which are now known to 

 occur at various horizons in the Carboniferous series. For this 

 district presents unusual difficulties to an understanding of the 

 disposition of the rocks beneath the Glacial Drift. 



In the belt of country nearest Lakeland, occupied by the Carboni- 

 ferous Limestone series, which is mostly from about 400 feet to more 

 than 1000 feet above the level of the sea, the various beds of lime- 

 stone and sandstone are frequently traceable for a certain distance, 

 and the presence here and there of a considerable thickness of 

 Glacial Drift obscures, but does not wholly hide, the arrangement 

 of the older rocks. But the obscurity greatly increases as we 

 descend into the lower ground towards the Solway, in which the 

 Upper Carboniferous, the Permian-Triassic, 1 and the Liassic rocks 

 exist, for there the surface consists almost entirely of Glacial Drift 

 and other superficial beds. Here and there, often at rare intervals, 

 Carboniferous and Permian-Triassic beds may be seen in the banks 

 of the rivers and streams, or as small patches elsewhere ; but they 

 make no definite features; the surface-ridges are composed wholly 

 of Glacial Drift. And when, after long and laborious work in the 

 field, approximate boundaries between the older formations can be 

 made out, they are usually lines of fault. Coast sections, also, are 

 few and far between. From a point about two miles north of 

 Maryport to the mouth of the Eden at Rockcliff superficial beds 

 only can be seen. Permian-Triassic (St. Bees) Sandstone appears 

 at Maryport, but southward, between Maryport and Whitehaven, 

 coast-sections in the older rocks are rare, though there is a con- 

 tinuous series of them from Whitehaven round the headland of 

 St. Bees. 



Then, in addition to the difficulties arising from the covering of 

 Glacial Drift, we have (along the Carboniferous and Permian- 

 Triassic junction from Maryport north-eastward) another in the 

 reddish or purple-grey tint of many of the Carboniferous beds, 

 which approximates so closely to that of the Permian-Triassic 

 deposits as to make the task of distinguishing between them one 

 of greater difficulty than usual. I may add, however, that when 

 engaged on the Geological Survey in North Cumberland many years 



1 I use this term to include all the red rocks hetween the Coal -measures aud 

 the Lias. 



