its Permo-Triassic Sequence. 247 



3. The rocks at the base of the Abbeytown bore are reported by 

 Mr. Holmes as follows (1899, p. 54) :— 



Grey sandstone and blue sandy shale 

 Soft grey sandstone . . . 



Soft red and white sandstone . 

 Soft red sandstone (left off in) 

 Mr. Fleming Smith has kindly sent me a copy of the journal of 

 the lowest 100 feet of the bore. It is as follows : — 



Ked and blue shale, with gypsum and 

 sandstone beds. 



Ked and grey shale, with gypsum and 

 sandstone beds. 



Ked and grey shale. 



Blue shale. 



Grey sandstone. 



Red and blue sandy shale. 



Dark grey sandstone. 



Blue shale. 



Grey sandstone. 



Red sandy shale. 



Blue sandy shale. 



Red and grey sandy shale. 



Grey grit. 



Grey grit (soft ; no core) . 



Red and white sandstone, soft. 



Red sandstone, soft (no core). 

 This description of the lowest beds appears suggestive of the Penrith 

 rather than of the St. Bees Sandstone. 1 The most characteristic 

 feature of the St. Bees Sandstone is that it consists of posts of 

 sandstone separated by layers and partings of shale ; the Penrith 

 Sandstone, on the other hand, contains no such shales and usually 

 consists of thick beds of soft sandstone, the colour of which is more 

 variable than that of the St. Bees Sandstone. The lowest 65 feet of 

 the bore was through red, white, and grey sandstone ; this composition 

 and the absence of interbedded shale agree better with the upper part 

 of the Penrith Sandstone than with the St. Bees Sandstone. 



4. Mr. Holmes describes the lowest bed of the Abbeytown bore as 

 the ordinary St. Bees Sandstone ; but he lays stress on the correlation 

 of the overlying grey sandstone with that exposed on the bank of the 

 Caldew, 240 yards north of the dyke near Dalston. This position 

 would place that cliff almost up to the fault which in Mr. Holmes' 

 map (1881, pi. xi) separates the St. Bees Sandstone from the Kirk- 

 linton Sandstone ; and if the grey sandstone be included in the 

 Kirklinton Sandstone, as Mr. Holmes' map shows to be quite possible, 

 then it would belong to a formation which Mr. Holmes (1899, pp. 6, 

 31) describes as resembling the Penrith -Sandstone and not the 

 St. Bees Sandstone. 



1 The descriptions in the bore journal might conceivably refer to the Upper 

 Coal-measure Sandstones of the Whitehaven type. But even the waste of 

 these measures would be easily distinguished from the Permian and Triassic 

 Sandstones. The lowest beds are probably later than Carboniferous. There 

 is, however, no improbability in the gypseous shales resting unconformably on 

 the Carboniferous in this district. 



