A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
of the New Red and ended with the Neocomian (the Lower Neozoic 
Period) there was a repetition of the folding and faulting along the same 
tracts of Cumberland as before ; so that the Lake district dome, and 
the country east of the Pennine Faults were again elevated, and the 
lately-deposited strata removed from these areas just as was the case in 
former times. The whole of Cumberland (and indeed the whole of 
Britain and much of western Europe as well) underwent denudation 
to such an extent that a Third Plain, much more uniform in character 
than the other two, was gradually shaped. It is important to remember 
that over the Lake district this plain was shaped out of the edges of 
highly-inclined Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian rocks; and that 
around the Lake district and east of the Pennine Faults it was carved 
mainly out of rocks of Carboniferous age, just as the Second Plain was, 
while the remaining part consisted of New Red with some few outlying 
remnants of the Jurassic Rocks which had escaped destruction. This 
relationship is illustrated by fig. 3. 
Now it was upon this very even Third Plain that the Cretaceous 
and succeeding rocks were laid down. 
(2) Finally, in Tertiary times, and perhaps all through the great 
volcanic episode, there went on a renewal of the upheaval over the 
same zone as before. Now it was upon this surface, formed mainly of 
Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks, that the rivers of Cumberland first origin- 
ated. There are many facts, which the present author has discussed 
elsewhere, which seem to point to the conclusion that the chief Post- 
Cretaceous uplands did not quite coincide with the areas which stand 
highest now. The behaviour of many of the rivers of north-western 
England seems to point to their original starting-point having lain at a 
spot a short distance south of where the town of Appleby is now. At the 
period under consideration the great depression of Edenside was covered 
by some Post-Triassic rock, whose upper surface stood at a relatively 
higher level than the rocks around. On the assumption that such was 
the case, it is not difficult to explain the anomalous features presented by 
the head waters of the Tees, the Tyne, the Lune, the Eden, the Swale 
and others, if we assume that they all originally started seaward from an 
ellipsoidal area composed of rocks softer than those which now appear 
at the surface. Their courses seem to have been first established in this, 
and then to have been modified by the unequal rate of lowering of the 
various surfaces upon which their courses descended in subsequent times. 
The idea involves many complications, and it may require much think- 
ing over before it can be fully grasped. But a study of the diagram- 
sections (figs. 1 to 4) may help to make the supposed sequence of events 
clearer. The longer axis of the ellipsoidal area above referred to, or, in 
other words, the primitive watershed of the Lake district, may have 
coincided in position with Grasmere, High Street, Crosby Ravensworth, 
Warcop and the head of Lunedale. 
(e) The elevation of this ellipsoidal area into land commenced (it 
is here assumed) in early Post-Cretaceous times, and the rivers began 
46 
