1868.] HULL LINES OF ELEVATION. 329 



in the interval between the Carboniferous and Permian periods, it 

 cannot fail to impress us with some idea of the prodigious lapse of 

 time necessary for the accomplishment of such a result — a lapse of 

 time, it may be remarked, which is not represented by any known 

 group of rocks. Here, indeed, is a blank in the * Geological Becord ' 

 w^aiting to be filled up. 



Along the southern margin of the Lancashire coal-field we have 

 examples of Permian strata resting unconformably on Carboniferous, 

 as Mr. Binney, P.R.S., has clearly shown ; but the amount of 

 denudation there is inconsiderable as compared with that along the 

 northern flanks of the Pendle range. 



I regard it, therefore, as proved that the northern limits of the 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire coal-fields were determined before the 

 Permian period, and at a time when both these coal-fields were still 

 united ; for, as I shall presently endeavour to show, the uprising of the 

 Pennine chain did not take place till a later period, namely, after the 

 close of the Permian. In this case the Pendle range, together with 

 all those lines of flexure ranging across the north of England, take 

 rank in time next to the North -Wales, Charnwood-Porest, and Cum- 

 brian groups of hills. I shall now proceed to discuss the question of 

 the age of the Pennine chain. 



Age of the Pennine Chain. — At the time when Conybeare and 

 Phillips* applied this term to the central range of hills which extend 

 in a north-to-south direction from the borders of Scotland to the 

 banks of the Trent in Derbyshire, no distinction had been attempted 

 between the Permian and Triassic formations. IS'ow that we are 

 aware of the relations and important diff'erences between these two 

 groups of rocks, it is time to inquire to what period, whether that 

 before or that following the Permian, the uprising of the Pennine 

 range is to be referred ; and, as far as I have been able to ascertain, 

 the attempt has not yet been made. 



It is indeed imiversally admitted that the upheaval of the rocks of 

 the Pennine chain and their subsequent denudation are of older date 

 than the Trias, since the beds of this latter formation overlap the 

 highly inclined Lower Carboniferous strata all along the southern 

 extremity of the Derbyshire hills ; but the relations of these Carboni- 

 ferous beds to those of the Permian stage are not so apparent, and 

 require special investigation. 



With this object in view, it is necessary to trace the course of the 

 axis of upheaval of the Pennine chain as it occurs in Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, and Staffordshire, which will only require short notice here, 

 as my colleague, Mr. A. H. Green, and myself have described its course 

 and effects on a former occasion in the Journal of the Geological 

 Society t. We have traced this line of fracture from the neighbour- 



* ' Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales.' The authors adopted 

 this term from the Eoman name supposed to have been applied to this range of 

 hills. 



t E. Hull and A. H. Green " On the Millstone-grit," &c,, Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. vol. XX. 1864 ; also " Geology of the country around Stockport, Macclesfield, 

 &c.," Mem. Geological Survey, by the same authors. 



2a2 



