PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCrETIES. 
188 
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 "chasms" are probably the effects of an 
earthquake in very early times. 
PEOCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
Geological Society of London. — March 19. — The Papers were 
1. "On the Sandstones, and their associated deposits, in the Valley of 
the Eden, the Cumberland Plain, and the South-east of Dumfriesshire." 
By Prof. H. Harkness, F.R.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, Phillips, 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 Vale 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 
shales are regarded by Prof Harkness as equivalent to the Permian Marl- 
slate of Durham ; they contain (at Hilton Beck) remains of Conifers, 
Neuropteris, Sphenopteris, Weissites (?), CaulerpHes selaginoides (?), Cu- 
pressites ZTllmani (?), Voltzia Phillipsii (P), C/jathocynnus ramosus, and 
TerehraUila elongata. The breccias and sandstone beneath, previously 
recognized as Permian, are here referred to the Rothliegende ; 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 hear 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 Nithdale, 
concluded the paper. 
2. " On the Date of the Last Elevation of the Central Valley of 
Scotland." By Archibald Geikie, F.R 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 
