396 Prof. Sedgwick on the New Red Sandstone Series in the 



measures^ there could not be a shadow of doubt^ though there were no other 

 section besides that on the coast; and in Croft Pit it has been sunk through 

 into the lower sandstone and down to the main and bannock seams. Along 

 with the other upper strata, it strikes across the peninsula of St. Bees Head, 

 and is seen in Ben How quarry (near Green Bank farm), on the low road 

 from St. Bees to Whitehaven, where it is made, by a remarkable fault, to 

 abut against the lower red sandstone*. Beyond this point the yellow, cellular 

 limestone beds do not appear; but the magnesian conglomerates are found to 

 the south of the valley of St. Bees (at Parkhouse, and in the rivulet which runs 

 down thence towards Linethwaite), forming the base of the new red sandstone 

 group. 



Over the preceding deposit of the coast section, come several feet of gray, 

 thin-bedded, sandy marls, to which the red jaspideous bed, above noticed, ap- 

 pears to be subordinate. This sandy deposit is surmounted by alternating- 

 beds of unctuous, red marl and gypsum, amounting in thickness to eight or ten 

 fathoms. The two substances are so mixed together, in some places, as not to 

 be separable ; but in other parts of the section (and especially in the higher 

 and lower portions of it) the gypsum is found in strong beds, which have been 

 much worked ; and in one of the excavations was found a bed, about half 

 an inch thick, composed of a nearly pure, earthy, semi-indurated carbonate 

 of zinc. This fact deserves remarking, as carbonate of zinc occurs in con- 

 siderable abundance in deposits on the Mendip Hills, nearly of the same age 

 with those here described. 



Lastly, the gypseous marls are surmounted by sandy marls and micaceous, 

 slaty sandstone, rising to a considerable height in the red precipice of St. Bees 

 Head ; and these are overlaid by a great, thick-bedded freestone, which in some 

 places loses the lines of stratification, and decomposes into rude, grotesque, 

 castellated forms. These upper rocks are identical with the finest specimens 

 of the new red sandstone of Cheshire and Lancashire, of Low Furness, Ap- 

 pleby and Carlisle, and may be regarded as one of the most characteristic 

 exhibitions of the formation to be seen in our island. 



The several beds entering into the structure of St. Bees Head, are carried 

 by their south-western dip, and by a downcast fault, one after the other under 

 the sea ; and no superior formation is visible on any part of the neighbouring 

 coast. The " upper red marl and gypsum," completing our red sandstone 

 series up to the lower lias marls, are therefore wanting, either having been 

 washed away by those causes which have produced the present deep indentations 

 of the coast, or being, perhaps, buried under the waters of the western sea. 



* See Plate XXV. fia. 4. 



