l88 Reports and Proceedings — 



IL— February 23, 1881.— Robert EtlierWge, Esq., F.RS., President, 

 in the Chair.— The following communications were read : — 



1. A letter from Dr. John Kirk, communicated to the Society by 

 the Eight Hon. Earl Granville, dated :- — 



" H.M. Agencv and Consulate General, 

 Zanzibar, December 20, 1880. 



" My Lord, — It may be of interest to record the occurrence here of 

 an earthquake shock felt in the island of Zanzibar at 6-58 a.m., mean 

 time, on the morning of the 18th inst. 



"Although the shock was very distinct, no damage appears to 

 have been done to any buildings in town. 



" It is now twenty-four years since a similar shock has been here 

 noticed ; but on the mainland, especially in the vicinity of Ujiji, 

 they are both more common and more severe than at the coast. 



'•Shortly after the cable was laid between Mozambique and 

 Delagoa Bay, the communication was suddenly interrupted after 

 one of these earthquake shocks, which seems to have caused the 

 falling in of rocks by which the cable was crushed. 



" I have the honour to be, etc., 



" The Eight Honourable JoHN KiRK, 



Earl Gi'anville, etc., etc., S.M. Ag'ent and Consul- General, 



London. Zanzibar." 



2. "The Permian, Triassic, and Liassic Eocks of the Carlisle 

 Basin." By T. V. Holmes, Esq., F.G.S. 



The district discussed in the author's paper was worked over by 

 him when engaged on the Geological Survey, and consists of those 

 parts of Cumberland and Dumfriesshire which adjoin the Solway. 

 Its southern boundary is, approximately, a line rainging from Mary- 

 port to Eose Castle on the Eiver Caldew, and touching the Eden 

 about two miles above Wetheral. On the east and north-east its 

 limits are the immediate neighbourhoods of the junction of the 

 rivers Eden and Irthing, Hethefsgill on the Hether Burn, Bracken- 

 hill Tower on the Line, and the Border Boundary on the Eivers Esk 

 and Sark ; and in Dumfriesshire the small tract south of a line 

 ranging from the junction of Scots Dyke with' the Sark on the north- 

 east, to Cummertrees on the south-west. 



The lowest bed in this area is the great Upper Permian or St. 

 Bees Sandstone, -vvhich occupies a belt of country in the neighbour- 

 hood of the outer boundary. Directly above St. Bees Sandstone, in 

 the west of the district, lies a formation consisting of shales with 

 gypsum, which, though 700 feet thick in the neighbourhood of 

 Abbey Town, is nowhere visible, but is known solely from borings, 

 the country west of the Caldew, and of the Eden below the junction 

 of the two streams, being thickly drift-covered and almost section- 

 less. In the east of the district the St. Bees Sandstone is overlain 

 directly by a soft, red, false-bedded sandstone, called by the author 

 Kirklinton Sandstone, from the locality in which the rock is best 

 seen, as well as its relations to the under- and overlying beds. But 

 while there is no evidence of any unconformity between the St. 



