its Permo-Triassic Sequence. 243 



Carboniferous Series. The whole succession of the beds in the bore 

 is quite unlike the local Permian or Trias. 



This bore journal is not the only evidence for the existence of the 

 Lower Carboniferous beds at this locality ; for, as the Busbys remark 

 in an appendix in Singer (1812, p. 673), the grey sandstones may be 

 seen on the bed of the Kirtle Water near the site of the bore. These 

 beds outcrop at the distance of about 450 yards down-stream from the 

 bore and are 250 yards below a footbridge near Old Gretna. They 

 occur at the point represented on the six inch map (Dumfriesshire, 

 Sh. 64 N.W., ed. 1898) beside the 'a' of Kirtle Water, five 

 hundred yards west of Old Gretna. The microscopic character of 

 these sandstones agrees with those of the Lower Carboniferous Series, 

 and they differ from those of the adjacent Triassic beds. 



It is clear that Carboniferous rocks occur near the northern shore 

 of the Eastern Solway as well as along the Western Solway. Hence 

 the southern as well as the northern 1 margin of the Annan Sandstone, 

 the Dumfriesshire continuation of the St. Bees Sandstone, rests 

 unconformably on the Carboniferous without any Permian beds 

 intervening. 



Whether the Carboniferous rocks of Bedkirk are bounded to the 

 south by a fault or pass beneath an unconformable cover of Permian 

 beds is uncertain. The probability appears in favour of their southern 

 margin being faulted. The Solway district is traversed by three 

 series of faults; the dominant faults trend from east to west or from 

 east-north-east to west-south-west; and they are met by two other 

 sets of faults ; one set trends from north and south or from north- 

 north-west to south-south-east, and the other set trends from 

 north-west to south-east. The Bedkirk bore is close beside the 

 line of continuation of the Boltonfell fault, one of the pair of ridge 

 faults by which, 8 miles to the east of Bedkirk, the Lower 

 Carboniferous rocks are upfaulted between the Trias on the south and 

 the Coal-measures at Biddings. 



The presence of a raised platform of Carboniferous rocks to the 

 north of the Solway, on which the Bunter Sandstones were deposited 

 directly, shows that whether the Carboniferous beds are cut off to the 

 south by a fault or are covered by the Permians, the Solway basin 

 had been initiated by subsidences and faulting in pre-Bunter times ; 

 while it was enlarged by post-Triassic faulting. 



The outcrop of Carboniferous rocks at Bedkirk is therefore opposed 

 to the synclinal theory of the Solway, according to which, moreover, 

 the St. Bees Sandstone extends under the Solway and continues 

 beneath North-Western Cumberland deep below a thick sheet of 

 gypseous shales. The existence of this extension of the St. Bees 

 Sandstone rests on slender grounds which appear untenable. The 

 evidence of the Bedkirk bore has an important bearing on the 

 classification of the Permian and Triassic systems in this district as 

 well as on the structure of the Solway valley. Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 in his preface to the Geological Survey memoir on the neighbourhood 

 of Carlisle, remarked that the classification of the rocks advocated by 

 Mr. T. V. Holmes in the memoir differs from that which was adopted 

 1 See Peach & Home, 1903, pi. iii, sects. 4, 5. 



