298 . Old Red Sandstone and 



Now why is it that the Carboniferous and Old Eed 

 Sandstone rocks have been specially preserved in the 

 great valley, and almost entirely removed from the 

 upland region of the Lammermuir hills ? The reason 

 is this : 



When strata have been thrown into a series of anti- 

 clinal and synclinal curves, it has frequently happened 

 that those parts of the disturbed strata that were thrown 

 downwards, so as to form deep basin-shaped hollows, 

 were by this means saved, for long periods of time, from 

 the effects of denudation, while the upper parts of the 

 neighbouring anticlinal curvatures, being exposed to all 

 the wasting influences of the air, rain, rivers, and the 

 sea, were denuded away. 



In other words, some widely extended portions of 

 the strata lay so deep that no wasting influence had 

 access to them, and they have escaped denudation, and 

 the basin as geologists term it remains. This is the 

 reason why so many coal-fields lie in basins. It is 

 not, as used to be supposed, that the Carboniferous beds 

 were deposited in basins, but that by disturbance part 

 of the strata were thrown into that form, and saved from 

 the effects of denudation. Such basins are, therefore, 

 equally common to all kinds of formations ; though, 

 because they rarely contain substances of economic 

 value, they have not met with the same attention that 

 Coal-basins have received. 



In the case now under review it happens that the 

 Old Eed Sandstone and Carboniferous rocks lie in the 

 hollow, and, though much worn away and fragmentary, 

 they have been to a great extent preserved ; while the 

 continuation of part of the same formations that lay 

 high in an anticlinal form, and originally spread over 

 the Lammermuir hills (3'), has been almost all removed 



