PEOCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



183 



Near Spanish Head the rocks are rent by twelve perpendicular 

 fissures of unknown depth, opening out towards the sea, and dividing 

 the headland into huge pyramidal and conical masses, " which over- 

 hang the shore," and seem ready on the slightest disturbance to fall 

 headlong into the waves beneath. " In one of these recesses, which 

 penetrates many hundred yards into the solid rock, is a circle of 

 erect stones, appearing to have been a Druidical temple, for which, 

 from the solitude and sublimity of the situation, no place could be 

 more appropriate." These "cliasms" are probably the effects of an 

 eartliquake in very early times. 



PROCEEDINGS OE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



Geological Society of Londox. — MavcJi 19. — The Papers were 



1. "On the Sandstones, and their associated deposits, in tlie Valley of 

 the Eden, the Cumberland Plain, and the South-east of Dumfriesshire." 

 By Prof. H. Harkness, F.E.S., F.G.S. Having defined the area occupied 

 by these sandstones, breccias, clays, and flagstones, and referred to the 

 published memoirs in which some notices of these deposits have been, 

 given by Buckland, Sedgwick, PhilHps, and Binney. the author described, 

 1st, a section near Kirkby-Stephen, across the vale of the Eden, where 

 two breccias, separated by sandy clay-beds, underlie sandstones of con- 

 siderable thickness ; 2ndly, a section across Eden Yale from Great Orm- 

 side to Homan Fell, in which the breccias, associated with sandstones, 

 form a mass 2000 feet thick, and are succeeded by thin sandstones, shales 

 (with fossils), and thin limestone, altogether about 160 feet, and next by 

 sandstones 700 feet thick. This is the typical section ; the fossiliferous 

 sjiales are regarded by Prof Harkness as equivalent to the Permian Marl- 

 slate of Durham ; they contain (at Hilton Beck) remains of Coniferce, 

 Keuropteris, Sphenopteris, Weissites (?), Caulerpites selaginoides (?), Cu- 

 pressites ZTllmani if), Voltzia PhiUipsii {?}, Cijcdkocrinus ramosus, and 

 Terehratula elongata. The breccias and sandstone beneath, previously 

 recognized as Permian, are here referred to the Eothliegende ; and the 

 sandstones above are regarded as belonging to the Trias. Detailed de- 

 scriptions of the sandstones and breccias in the country between Great 

 Ormside and Penrith were then given, and the gypseous character of the 

 clays at Long Martin and Townsend noticed. In the section across the 

 vale of the Eden from the west of Penrith to Hartside Fell, the Permian 

 breccias, sandstone, and flags are nearly 5000 feet thick, but the clay series 

 is poorly represented. North of Penrith the flagstones bear foot-marks 

 (at Brownrigg) like those of Corncockle Muir. Mr. Harkness next de- 

 scribed several sections of these Permian rocks in the western Westmore- 

 land ; and traced them to the other side of the Solway Forth, in Dum- 

 friesshire (as described in former papers). Some remarks on the relations 

 of the Permian beds of Cumberland and "Westmoreland with those of St. 

 Bee's Head, near Whitehaven, and those of Annandale and JSfithdale, 

 concluded the paper. 



2. " On the Date of the Last Elevation of the Central Valley of 

 Scotland." By Archibald Geikie, F.E.S.E., F.G.S. After alluding to 

 the position and nature of the raised beach which, at the height of from 

 20 to 30 feet above the present high- water-mark, fringes the coast-line of 



