TRIASSIC STRATA OF CUMBERLAND AND DUMFRIES. 383 



same age as the Whitehaven sandstone, although, if I had 

 found large quartz -pebbles in it, I should have been in- 

 clined to do so from its other characters and fossil organic 

 remains. If this sandstone can be proved to be the same, 

 it will give us a much better idea as to where we are to 

 place it, and show that it overlies the upper coal-measures 

 with the Spirorbis limestone, and passes into red shales 

 containing Stigmaria, until it goes into the soft red sand- 

 stone containing four beds of breccia. Professor Sedgwick, 

 many years since, contended that the Whitehaven sand- 

 stone was the lowest member of the New Ked Sandstone 

 group, and says ■^, ^^ After the first elevation of the central 

 carboniferous chain of the north, the lowest division of the 

 New Red Sandstone group (Rothtodt-liegende) was im- 

 mediately deposited. The movements of elevation were 

 not merely followed by, but were probably the mechanical 

 causes of, this deposit, which is composed of sand, small 

 pebbles, and other incoherent materials drifted to the 

 outer edge of the coal-fields, even to this day in many 

 places but imperfectly cemented, and contains, though 

 rarely, a few drifted coal-plants. In some districts it is 

 perfectly conformable to the upper coal-strata on which it 

 immediately rests, and seems to form a regular connecting 

 link between them and the overlying formations ; but con- 

 sidered on the whole, its position, as far as regards the 

 inferior strata, is discordant. It was followed and perhaps 

 interrupted by movements of elevation producing a con- 

 siderable disarrangement in its component beds, and of 

 course also affecting the lower formations ; and these move- 

 ments were succeeded in several parts of Yorkshire and of 

 the Cumbrian Mountains by deposits of magnesian con- 

 glomerate and magnesian limestone, unconformable to the 



* ''Introduction to the General Structure of the Cumberland Mountains," 

 &c., by the Eev. A. Sedgwick, F.E..S., &c., Transactions of the Geological 

 Society of London, (2nd series), vol. iv. p. 58. 



