PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
467 
the Trias, their characters and organic remains clearly indicating more of 
a Permian age.* Accordingly, in his first paper published on this sub- 
ject in the Society's Memoirsf in 1855, allusion was made to these beds, 
and they were classed as Permian after tracking the Permian beds of Lan- 
cashire through the north-western counties of York, Westmoreland, and 
Cumberland. His attention was chiefly directed to the red marls, magne- 
sian limestones, conglomerate, and soft red sandstone strata, those being 
the common Lancashire types ; and where the red sandstones of the neigh- 
bourhood of Carlisle and St. Bees were incidentally mentioned, they were 
treated as Upper IS'ew Eed Sandstone or Trias, as Professor Sedgwick 
has described them in his valuable memoir. But in his second communi- 
cation, ;J: published in 1857, where the Howrigg, Shawk, and Westward 
sections are described, he came to this conclusion that " the^brick-red sand- 
stones of those places, with their underlying red clays, as well as the 
breccia at Shawk, I have little doubt will be proved to be Permian. It is 
true that no fossil organic remains have yet been found in them, with the 
exception of the track alluded to in this paper ; but if mineralogical cha- 
racters and geological superposition are to be taken as evidence of their 
age, they are as good Permian beds as those of West-House, Kirby Stephen, 
and Brough, in England, and Dumfries and other places in tlie south-west 
of Scotland, with the latter of which they are most probably connected." 
In a paper published by Professor Harkness in 1862, § that geologist 
adopts in substance this view, and agrees with the author's opinion of the 
Howrigg, Shawk, and Westward red clays and sandstones being of Permian 
age, and describes a very beautiful section at Hilton, in Westmoreland, 
which strongly confirms it. Of course, it was not intended to question the 
Triassic age of the soft red sandstones of Dalston and Holrahead, near Car- 
lisle, which are covered by waterstones, red marls, and lias, as stated in 
the author's paper on the latter deposit. || 
The Shawk sandstones are well seen at Westward Chapel near Wigton, 
W^est Newton, near Aspatria, near Allonby, and to the north of Maryport, 
and after the Maryport, Workington, and Whitehaven coal-field is passed, 
they appear again to the south on the coast, in the magnificent promon- 
tory of St. Bees' Head, and continue southward certainly to ^S^etherton, Sea- 
scales, Gosforth, and Drigg Cross, and probably, as Professor Sedgwick 
suggests, into Furness. 
On the north of the Solway the Permian strata on the opposite side of 
the Vale of Eden are well exposed nearEiddings Junction, on the Waver- 
ley line of railway, about Carwinlay, Moat, and Canobie, and the range of 
the Moat sandstone (the same age as that of Shai^ k) by Gleuzier Quarry, 
Cove, near Kirkpatrick Fleming, above Annan, on to Dumfries, is well 
marked. 
In addition to a description of several Permian sections at Penton, bid- 
dings, Carwinlay Burn, Barrowmoutb , and Ben How, two sections were 
given, which showed the occurrence of the upper coal-measures, similar to 
those described by the author some years since in the valley of the Ayr, 
* lu the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for 1851,' p. 162, Sir R. I. 
Murcl.ison doubted the sandstone of Dumfries being of Triassic age, and preferred to class 
it with the Permian. 
+ On the Permian Beds of the North-West of England, vol. xii. p. 209, of the 
Society's Memoirs. 
X Additional Observations on the Permian Beds of the North-West of England, 
vol. xiv. p. 101, of the Society's Memoirs. 
§ ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for August, 1862,' p. 205. 
II Ibid., for May, 1859, p. 519. 
