THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE 



NEW SERIES. DECADE VI. VOL. Jir-r 



No. VI— JUNE, 1915. 



■'"NX9 1915 



ORIG-IWAL ARTICLES^/,, i M^e^ 



I. — The Solway Basin and its Pkrmo-Teiassic Sequence. 



By J. W. Gregory, D.Sc, F.K.S. 



rpH-E Solway Eirth is the only important ria on the western coast of 

 X Scotland ; it has a complex history, for denudation and earth- 

 movements of several different dates have contributed to its formation. 

 Uncertainty as to the essential structure of the Solway valley at 

 present renders doubtful its position in the valley system of Southern 

 Scotland. The Solway-Carlisle basin is generally represented as 

 occupying a synclinal between the Lower Palaeozoic hills of the Lake 

 District and of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Thus the 

 sections by E. W. Binney (1865, p. 369, ref. p. 249) and Mr. T. V. 

 Holmes (1889, p. 247, and 1899, pp. 22, 40) represent the valley of 

 the Solway and its eastern continuation as lying along a synclinal and 

 resting on a great thickness of Triassic rocks. The axis of the 

 synclinal is marked by the Lias which occurs to the west of Carlisle. 

 The Solway-Carlisle basin cannot, however, have such a simple 

 synclinal structure, for Carboniferous rocks occur at the surface near 

 the northern shore of the Eastern Solway. This fact is shown by 

 a boring for coal made in 1794 in an old quarry beside the Kirtle 

 Water at Eedkirk Mill, \\ miles to the south-west of Gretna Green. 

 The bore journal was published in Singer's Agricultural Survey of the 

 County of Dumfries, 1812, pp. 670-3 ; and as that book is scarce 

 and the bore important the record may be conveniently reprinted. 



Journal of Boring for Coal at Kedkirk, in the Parish of 

 Graitney, 15th May, 1794. 



White stone 

 Gray beds . 

 White stone 

 White metal partings 

 Brown stone 

 Bleas 1 stone 

 Stone calm 2 



yds. ft. in. 

 4 2 



1 

 2 



6 

 116 



2 

 2 



yds. ft. in. 

 Strong white stone with water 6 



Stone calm . . . . 14 



Gray beds 2 3 



Hard brown randed with white 2 6 

 Light brown stone . . 2 4 



Carried fonoard 14 11 



1 Blaes or blaise — shale ; bleas is doubtless a misprint. 



2 ' Calm ' is defined by J. Barrowman in A Glossary of Scotch Mining 

 Terms, 1886, p. 15, as 'White or light coloured blaes '. 



DECADE VI. — VOL. II. — NO. VI. 16 



