376 
BOOK VI 
THE CARBONIFEROUS VOLCANOES 
Liddell and the Eule Water, they run in a narrow and much-faulted band 
south-westward across Eskdale and the foot of Anuandale, and are traceable 
in occasional patches on the farther side of the Mth along the southern 
flanks of Criffel, even as far as Torrorie on the coast of Kirkcudbright a 
total distance of about 45 miles. It is probable that this long outcrop 
presents merely the northern edge of a volcanic platform which is mainly 
buried under the Carboniferous rocks of the Solway basin. Yet it exhibits 
many of the chief characters of the other plateaux, and even occasionally 
rivals them in the dignity of the escarpments which mark its progress 
through the lonely uplands between the head of Liddesdale and the Ewes 
Water (Figs. 113, 142). 
The plateaux of the Merse and the Solway illustrate in a striking 
manner the distribution of the volcanic eruptions aloim' valleys and low 
plains. The vents from which the lavas and tiiffis proceeded arl chiefly to 
ei^ht of 1712 feet (the Pikes) to tlie west of the Cheviot Hills. Between 
if oTTe'c Berwickshire on the north and the 
iid„e of the Cheviot Hills on tlie south, the broad plain was dotted with 
volcanic vents and flooded with lava, while to the soiitli-west the corre- 
sponding hollow between the uplands of Dumfries and Calloway on the one 
side and those of Cumberland on the other, was similarly m^erspread The 
„f to to will be appee-eet when t .e aZ i" of fc 
of What thej oiiguially were, wide areas having been removed from the one 
side of them by Jniulation, and having been concealed on the other under 
latei portions of tlie Carboniferous system. 
