440 Tews Holmes—On Eskers or Kames. 
that of the Eden. And many others may be seen west of Brampton, 
towards Kirklinton and Irthington. 
The Abbey Town and Allonby tract is at a much lower level than 
that of Brampton. Its base is from 30 to 50 feet above the sea, and 
' the eskers rise to a height of 156 feet. And whereas the Brampton 
tract has higher ground on its eastern side and lower towards the 
Solway, that between Abbey Town and Allonby occupies the highest 
ground in its immediate neighbourhood, and descends both on the 
north-western and south-eastern sides to the level of the broad 
alluvial or peaty flats, which average about 30 feet above the sea. 
Many small peat mosses may be seen here and there in hollows in 
this as in the other esker tract, and where sections exist, the heaped- 
up formation of the ridges is more or less manifest. 
North. 
5 
i “gm 
= 
Sy 
T =Torkin. 
Fig. 1.—Esker Ridges near Crofton Hall, Cumberland (T. V. H.) 
Seale—an Inch to a Mile. 
Of the assemblages of isolated ridges and mounds, no better 
examples can be given than those on the east and north of Crofton 
Hall, six or seven miles S.W. of Carlisle. On the north side of 
Crofton Park one rather insignificant ridge suddenly swells out both 
in height and breadth and forms the well-known conical wooded hill 
called Torkin (see Fig. 1). On each side of Torkin the ridge rises 
perhaps 15 ft. to 20 ft. above the ground on each side of it, while 
Torkin reaches a height of about 70 ft. Sudden expansions of this 
kind are by no means uncommon among eskers. These eskers do 
not occupy the highest ground in their neighbourhood. Their bases 
average about 100 ft. above the sea, while much of the Lias plateau 
close to them on the north is more than 200 ft. But there are no 
eskers on the high land in this locality. In Cumberland the drift 
which covers almost all the surface forms ground with gentle, regular 
undulations and is not quite so flattened in contour, for the most 
part, as in East Anglia. But esker ridges are often as steep-sided as 
railway embankments, and the whole aspect of a district abounding 
in them contrasts very strongly with that of an eskerless region. 
As whole parishes are quite free from them, and they occupy but 
a very small proportion of the surface of North Cumberland, the 
appearance of asingle esker mound in an otherwise eskerless dis- 
