THE MKNnirs : a OEOLOcncAL reverie. 



247 



To the soutli of tliein, over parts of Devon and Dorset, lies a 

 Bunter Lake, girt to the west and south by a rocky and 

 iron-bound coast, stretching from Cornwall into the north 

 of France. 



To the north, over the sites of the Permian lakes on either 

 side of the Pennine axis, the occasional torrenti.il rains of 

 winter swept down from the valleys pebbly and sandy 

 detritus and spread them over the plains, which, during the 

 greater part of the year, may have " formed bare and arid 

 deserts, over which hot winds whirled clouds of sand, and on 

 which no living creature could find sustenance." In this 

 way, according to Prof. Bonney, were the pebble-beds and 

 wind-blown sand-stones of the Bunter formed ; but it is not 

 improbable that during periods of exceptional rainfall the 

 arid plains may have been converted into temporary shallow 

 lakes. 



In any case, with the advent of later Triassic (Keuper) 

 times, through changes of climate and slow subsidence of the 

 land, the areas of these Triassic lakes enlarged, the waters on 

 either side of the Pennine axis broadened and deepened, and 

 extended southwards, while those of the southern lake over 

 east Devon and Dorset crept further and further northwards 

 until tlio northern and the southern lakes became merged 

 in one sheet of water, and the Mendips became first a 

 promontory of the western land, and then an isolated island 

 at the mouth of a gulf which separated Devon from South 

 Wales (Map 3). 



Time had, however, wrought its ravages on the Mendips, 

 the main scenic features of which, as we now see them, 

 having, as I believe, been then impressed upon them. 



Let us turn aside for a moment to consider the part 

 played by this old denudation in producing the Mendip 

 Hills as wo now know them. After the deposition of the 



