L1ASSIC ROCKS OF THE CARLISLE BASIN. 



293 



ever, have hitherto been entirely ignored by writers on the geology 

 of North Cumberland, as well as by the authors of guide-books; 

 for, though Cliff Bridge itself is only about two and a half miles 

 from Longtown or Lyneside stations, trains stopping at those places 

 are few and far between, and every mile higher up the Line increases 

 the distance from the railway by that amount ; while eastward lies 

 the lone bare district of Newcastle, destitute alike of railways and 

 inns. 



The extent of the area covered by the marls, south of the Eden, 

 is doubtful, but the evidence available tends to show that it is very 

 small. Though they form the lower part of the cliff at Etterby 

 Scaur, the three new railway-bridges across the Caldew, the lowest 

 of which is close to the junction of the North-British and Caledonian 

 Railways, are all founded on the underlying sandstone, the marls 

 not having been met with at all ; and they were absent in the wells 

 at Messrs. Can's, Caldewgate, and Messrs. Dixon's, West Tower 

 Street : also in that at the Gaol. On the other hand, I saw them 

 in an excavation at the foot of Gaol Brow, on the north side of the 

 Gaol, and have observed traces of them at the bottom of deep drains 

 in Bank Street, Lowther Street, and opposite Cavendish Place in 

 the Warwick Boad ; but their thickness hereabouts, where they 

 exist, must be very trifling. 



West of the Caldew the evidence is much scantier. In addition 

 to the well at Messrs. Can's, already mentioned, Mr. E. W. Binney 

 records (in the paper before quoted) that at the pumping- engine for 

 the canal by Edenside, immediately above the red and variegated 

 marls, there was a section in the pump- well which distinctly showed 

 the marls at the top gradually passing down into the red sandstone 

 below. Again, at Stainton, on the north side of the Eden, between 

 Carlisle and Grinsdale, a boring showed them to be only 23 feet 

 thick. In the Eden, south of Stainton, the beds are lying nearly 

 flat, except near the North-British railway-bridge, where north- 

 easterly and north-westerly dips occur. There is no evidence as to 

 their thickness near Beaumont. 



The above facts, when combined with the great change in direc- 

 tion of the outcrop of the marls between Bickerby and Caldewgate, 

 from about N.N.E. and S.S.W. at the former, to nearly east and 

 west at the latter place, seem to point to their very slight extension 

 below the Lias. Most of the Lias probably rests, therefore, on the 

 Gypseous Shales west of Great Orton, and on the Kirklinton Sand- 

 stone east of that village, the Stanwix Marls underlying the Lias 

 only in the neighbourhood of Bellevue. 



Fresh borings for coal in the Lias district not being probable, the 

 existence of Bhsetic beds is likely to remain an open question. No 

 evidence of them has yet been discovered, all fossils hitherto found 

 having been determined by Mr. Etheridge (our President) to be 

 Lower Lias ; but so drift- covered is the country, and so few and small 

 are the sections, that negative evidence must go for very little in 

 settling the question. The Lias country is purely agricultural, and 

 wells sunk for the supply of farm and other houses are usually only 



Q. J. G. S. No. 146. x 



