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Lb, enkes el ORE eT a ee ae ten

The Wictoria thistory of the Counties of England

EDITED BY H. ARTHUR DOUBLEDAY

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

VOLUME I

A HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF CUMBERLAND IN FOUR VOLUMES EDITED BY JAMES WILSON, M.A.

THE

VICTORIA HISTORY

OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND

CUMBERLAND

WESTMINSTER

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED Ny

it \ss 4 {o This History ts = to Subscribers only By Archibald Constable & Company Limited and printed by Butler & Tanner of

Frome and London

INSCRIBED | TO THE MEMORY .OF HER LATE MAJESTY

QUEEN VICTORIA

WHO IN HER LIFETIME GRACIOUSLY GAVE THE TITLE TO AND ACCEPTED THE DEDICATION OF THIS HISTORY

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL OF THE VICTORIA HISTORY

His Grace Tue Duxe or Devonsnire, K.G. Chancellor of the University of Cambridge

His Grace Tue Duxe or Ruttanp, K.G. His Grace Tue Duke or Portrianp His Grace Tue Duxe or Arcyit, K.T.

Tue Most Hon. Tue Marquess oF Satissury, KG. Chancellor of the University of Oxford Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Eart oF Roszrery, K.G., K.T.

Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Eart or Coventry President of the Royal Agricultural Society

Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Viscount Ditton President of the Society of Antiquaries

Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Lorp Acton Regius Professor of Modern History, Cambridge

Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Lorp Lister President of the Royal Society Sir Freperick Pottocx, Barr., LL.D., F.S.A., ETC. Corpus Professor of Furisprudence, Oxford Sir Epwarp Maunve Tuompson, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.S.A., etc. Director of the British Museum

Sir Crements R. Marxuam, K.C.B., F.R.S., F.S.A. President of the Royal Geographical Society

Sin Henry Maxweut-Lyte, K.C.B., M.A,, F.S.A., ETC. Keeper of the Public Records

Cox. Sir J. Farquuarson, K.C.B.

Sir Jos. Hooxer, G.C.S.I., M.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., ETC.

Sir Arcuipatp Gerxiz, LL.D., F.R.S., Erc.

Rev. J. Cuarzes Cox, LL.D., F.S.A., etc.

Lionzt Cust, Esg., M.A., F.S.A., ETc. Director of the National Portrait Gallery

Dr. Atsert L. G. Gunner, F.R.S. President of the Linnean Society

Cor. Duncan A. JounsTon Director General of the Ordnance Survey

Pror. E. Ray Lanxester, M.A., F.R.S., erc. Director of the Nat. Hist. Museum, South Kensington

Recinatp L. Poors, Ese., M.A.

University Lecturer in Diplomatic, Oxford

F. York Powett, Esg., M.A., F.S.A,, erc. Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford

J. Horace Rounp, Esg., M.A. Watter Rys, Esa.

W. H. Sr. Joun Hors, Esg., M.A. Assistant Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries

General Editor—H. Artruur Dovusiepay

GENERAL ADVERTISEMENT

Tue Victoria Hisrory of the Counties of England is a National Survey showing the condition of the country at the present day, and tracing the domestic history of the

English Counties back to the earliest times.

Rich as every County of England is in materials for local history, there has hitherto been

no attempt made to bring all these materials together into a coherent form.

There are,

indeed, histories of English Counties; but many of them—and these the best—are exceed-. ingly rare and costly ; others are very imperfect ; all are out of date.

Tue Vicroria History will trace, county by county, the story of England’s growth from its prehistoric condition, through the barbarous age, the settlement of alien peoples, and

the gradual welding of many races into a nation which is now the greatest on the globe.

All

the phases of ecclesiastical history ; the changes in land tenure ; the records of historic and local families ; the history of the social life and sports of the villages and towns ; the develop- ment of art, science, manufactures and industries—all these factors, which tell of the progress of England from primitive beginnings to large and successful empire, will find a place in the work and their treatment be entrusted to those who have made a special study of them.

Many archeological, historical and other Societies are assisting in the compilation of this work, and the editor also has the advantage of the active and cordial co-operation of The National Trust, which is doing so much for the preservation of places of historic interest and natural beauty throughout the country.

The names of the distinguished men who have joined the Advisory Council are a

I vii 7)

guarantee that the work will represent the results of the latest discoveries in every department of research. It will be observed that among them are representatives of science ; for the whole trend of modern thought, as influenced by the theory of evolution, favours the intelli- gent study of the past and of the social, institutional and political developments of national life. As these histories are the first in which this object has been kept in view, and modern principles applied, it is hoped that they will form a work of reference no less indispensable to the student than welcome to the man of culture.

Family History will, both in the Histories and in the supplemental volumes of chart pedigrees, be dealt with by genealogical experts and in the modern spirit. Every effort will be made to secure accuracy of statement, and to avoid the insertion of those legendary pedigrees which have in the past brought discredit on the whole subject. It has been pointed out by the late Bishop of Oxford, a great master of historical research, that ‘ the expansion and extension of genealogical study is a very remarkable feature of our own times,’ that ‘it is an increasing pursuit both in America and England,’ and that it can render the historian useful service.

Heraldry will also in this Series occupy a prominent position, and the splendours of the coat-armour borne in the Middle Ages will be illustrated in colours on a scale that has never been attempted before.

The general plan of Contents, and the names of the Sectional Editors (who will co-operate with local workers in every case) are as follows :—

Natural History. Edited by Avayn B. R. Trevor-Batryz, M.A, F.L.S., etc. Geology. By Cremznr Ret, F.R.S., Horace B. Woopwarp, F.R.S., and others Palzontology. Edited by R. L. Lyprxxer, F.R.S., etc. Contributions by G. A. Bourencer, F.R.S., F. O. Prcxarp-Camprince, M.A., H. N. Dixon, F.L.S.,

Flora G. C. Drucr, M.A., F.L.S., Watter Garsranc, M.A., F.L.S., Hersert Goss, F.L.S., F.E.S., R. I. Pocock, Rev. T.R. R. Srezsine, M.A., F.R.S., etc., B. B. Woopwarp, F.G.S., F.R.M.S., etc., and other Specialists Prehistoric Remains. Edited by W. Boyp Dawxins, M.A, F.R.S., F.S.A. Roman Remains. Edited by F. Haverrrerp, M.A., F.S.A. Anglo-Saxon Remains. Edited by C. Hercurzs Reap, F.S.A. and Rzoinarp A, Smiru, B.A, Ethnography. Edited by G. Laurence Gomme, F.S.A.

Dialect. Edited by Josspex Wricut, M.A. Ph.D.

Place Names

Folklore Contributed by Various Authorities

Physical Types

Domesday Book and other kindred Records. Edited by J. Horace Rounp, M.A.

Architecture. By Various Authorities. The Sections on the Cathedrals and Monastic Remains Edited by W. H. Sr. Joun Horz, M.A.

Ecclesiastical History. Edited by R. L. Poor, M.A.

Political History. Edited by W. H. Stevenson, M.A., J. Horace Rounp, M.A., Pror. T. F. Tout, M.A., James Tart, M.A., and C. H. Firta, M.A.

History of Schools. Edited by A. F. Leacu, M.A., F.S.A. Maritime History of Coast Counties. Edited by J. K. Lavcuron, M.A. Topographical Accounts of Parishes and Manors. By Various Authorities History of the Feudal Baronage, Edited by J. Horace Rounp, M.A., and Oswarp Barron, F.S.A, Family History and Heraldry. Edited by Oswarp Barron, F.S.A. Agriculture, Edited by Sim Erwzsr Crarxz, M.A,, Sec. to the Royal Agricultural Society Forestry. Edited by Joun Nisaer, D.Oxc. Industries, Arts and Manufactures Social and Economic History By Various Authorities Persons Eminent in Art, Literature, Science Ancient and Modern Sport. Edited by the Dux or Braurort Hunting Shooting By Various Authoritics Fishing, etc. Cricket. Edited by Home Gorpon Football. Edited by C. W. Axcocx Bibliographies Indexes Names of the Subscribers

Fauna

_ With a view to securing the best advice with regard to the searching of records, the Editor has secured the services of the following committee of experts :—

RECORDS COMMITTEE

Sir Epwarp Maunpve Tuompson, K.C.B. Wm. Pacz, F.S.A.

Sir Henry Maxwett-Lytez, K.C.B. J. Horace Rounp, M.A.

W. J. Harpy, F.S.A. S. R. Scarciii-Birp, F.S.A.

F. Manan, M.A. W. H. Srevenson, M.A.

F. Marrtanp, M.A., F.S.A. G. F. Warner, M.A., F.S.A. ILLUSTRATIONS

Among the many thousands of subjects illustrated will be castles, cathedrals and churches, mansions and manor houses, moot halls and market halls, family portraits, etc. Particular attention will be given to the beautiful and quaint examples of architecture which, through decay or from other causes, are in danger of disappearing. The best examples of church brasses, coloured glass, and monumental effigies will be depicted. The Series will also contain 160 pictures in photogravure, showing the characteristic scenery of the counties.

CARTOGRAPHY

___ Each History will contain Archeological, Domesday, and Geological maps ; maps show- ing the Orography, and the Parliamentary and Ecclesiastical divisions ; and the map done by Speed in 1610. The Series will contain about four hundred maps in all.

FAMILY HISTORY AND HERALDRY

The Histories will contain, in the Topographical Section, manorial pedigrees, and accounts of the noble and gentle families connected with the local history ; and it is proposed to trace, wherever possible, their descendants in the Colonies and the United States of America. The Editor will be glad to receive information which may be of service to him in this branch of the work. The chart family pedigrees and the arms of the families mentioned in the Heralds’ Visitations will be issued in a supplemental volume for each county.

The Rolls of Arms are being completely collated for this work, and all the feudal coats will be given in colours. The arms of the local families will also be represented in connection with the Topographical Section.

In order to secure the greatest possible accuracy in the descriptions of the Architecture, ecclesiastic, military and domestic, a committee has been formed of the following students of architectural history, who will supervise this department of the work :—

ARCHITECTURAL COMMITTEE

J. Buson, F.S.A., F.R.LB.A. W.H. Sr. Joun Hopz, M.A.

R. BLoMFIELD W. H. Kwowtes, F.S.A., F.R.LB.A. Haroitp Brakspgar, A.R.I.B.A. J. T. Micxretuwaire, F.S.A. Pror. BALDwiIn Brown Roranp Pau

ArTHuR S. Flower, F.S.A., A.R.I.B.A. J. Horace Rounp, M.A.

GerorcE E. Fox, M.A., F.S.A. Percy G. Strong, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. J. A. Gorcn, F.S.A., F.R.LB.A. THACKERAY ‘TURNER

A special feature in connection with the Architecture will be a series of coloured ground plans showing the architectural history of castles, cathedrals and other monastic foundations. Plans of the most important country mansions will also be included.

The issue of this work is limited to subscribers only, whose names will be printed at the end of each History.

THE VICTORIA HISTORY

OF THE COUNTY OF

CUMBERLAND

VOLUME ONE

WESTMINSTER 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS

IQOI

County Committee for Cumberland

THE RT. HON. THE LORD MUNCASTER, F.S.A.

Lord Lieutenant, Chairman Hauer Rirry, Esq., J.P.. High Sheriff of Cumberland

Tue WorsuipruL THe Mayor oF CARLISLE

Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Earp oF CaRLisbe

THE Rr. Hon. Tue Earr or Lonspa.e

Tue Rr. Hon. Tue Viscount Morprtu

Tue Lorp Bishop oF CARLISLE

Tue Rr. Hon. THe Lorp LrconFietp

Tue Rr. Hon. THe Lorp BRouGHAM AND Vaux

THe Rr. Hon. THE SPEAKER OF THE Hovusz oF Commons

Tue Rr. Hon. James Witt1am LowTHER, J.P., D.L., M.P.

Str Ricuarp GrorceE Muscrave, j.P., D.L.

Sir Henry Rap Vane, Bart., J.P., D.L.

Sir Wirrip Lawson, Bart., J.P.

Sir THomas BrocKLeBaNk, Bart.

Srr JoszpH Ewart, J.P.

Sir Joun Dunng, D.L.

Tue Bishop oF BaRRow-IN-FuRNESS

Davin AtnswortH, Esa., J.P., D.L.

Joun Sriruinc ArnswortxH, Esq., J.P.

Rozert AnpREw Attison, Eso., D.L.

James ArtosH, Esq., J.P.

Epwin Hopce Banks, Esa., J.P., D.L.

Henry Barnes, Esa., J.P., LL.D.

Rev. Canon Bower, M.A.

Tuomas BrockLeBank, Eso., J.P.

F. W. Cuance, Esa., J.P., D.L.

Wii1am Irwin Roperr Crowner, Esq, J.P., D.L.

Joun Norman Dickinson, Esq., J.P.

Tuomas Drxon, Eso., J.P.

C. J. Fercuson, Eso., J.P., F.S.A.

Carr. Francis P, FLercHer-V ANE

Francis GRAINGER, Esa., J.P.

Gupert Henry WorpswortH Harrison, Esa.

Tuomas Harttey, Eso., J.P.. D.L.

Rev. W. G. Courrenay Hopcson, M.A.

Tuomas HesketH Hopcson, Eso., J.P.

Barr.,

TP,

Henry Cuaries Howarp, Esq., J.P., D.b.

Puitip Joun Canninc Howarp, Esq., J.P.

Cot. THomas ANGELO Irwin, J.P., D.L.

RoBERT JEFFERSON, Eso., J.P.

FREDERICK PonsonBy JoHNsON, Esq., J.P.

Grorce GraHam Kirkuinton, Esoq., J.P., D.L.

Wurrip Lawson, Esa., J.P., D.L.

Wuuam LewruwalrteE, Eso, J.P., D.L.

Mites MacInngs, Esa., J.P., D.L.

Recinatp Dykes MarsHa t, Esoq., J.P., D.L.

Tuomas Bartow-Massicxs, Esa., J.P.

Tue Master oF Curist’s CoLtecE, Cam- BRIDGE

Rev. F: L. H. Mizrarp, M.A.

Joun Muscrave, Esa., J.P.

Rev. Wiiu1am Hasett Parker, M.A.

Wiiam Parxin-Moorg, Esa., J.P., D.L.

Tue Ven. ARCHDEACON PRESCOTT

Tuer Provost oF QUEEN’s COLLEGE, OXFORD

Rey. Canon Rawnstey, M.A.°*

James Ropertson-WatkeEr, Esq., J.P.

Grorce Rosginson, Esa., J.P.

Tuomas Rymer, Esa., J.P.

B. Scorr, Eso., J.P.

H. Patricrus SEnHousE, Esa., J.P.

H. Pocxuinctron SENHOoUSsE, Eso., J.P., D.L.

Freperick Ropertson SEWELL, Esa., J.P.

James W. H. P. Speppine, Esa, J.P., D.L.

Wiuram Pery SranpisH, Esq., J.P.

Wuuam Srantey, Esa, D.L.

Epmunp W. Sreap, Esa.

His Honour JUDGE STEAVENSON

C. Lacy Tuompson, Esa., J.P., D.L.

R. Hzywoop-Tuompson, Esa., J.P.

Wii1am TENNANT TRIMBLE, Esq.

Wiu1aM Barrow Turner, Esq,, J.P., D.L.

E. T. Tyson, Esa., J.P.

J. Procror Watson, Esq., J.P.

James Wart, Eso., J.P.

Grorce Wuirte, Esa., J.P.

Editor: Rev. James Witson, M.A.

xiii

P. 73 p- 86 p. 86

Pp. 9°

ERRATA

Jor Great Strickland, near Penrith, read Great Salkeld, near Penrith jor Warmel read Warnel

jor Tallentine Hill read Tallentire Hill

jor Henry II. read Henry I.

xiv

CONTENTS OF

* Dedication

The Advisory Council of the Victoria History , General Advertisement

The Cumberland County Committee

List of Errata

Contents

List of Illustrations .

Preface .

Natural History

VOLUME ONE

Introduction to Natural. History . By the Rev. H. A. Macpuerson, M.A., M.B.O.U. . xxiii Geology . 5 ‘ : . By J. G.Gooncuinp, F.G.S., F.Z.S., H.M. Geol. Survey I

Climate. . : : - By the late Wittiam Hopcson, A.L.S. . : » 65 Palzontology : ‘ i - By Ricuarp L. Lypexxer, B.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 2 Fi Botany Introduction . 5 : . By the late Wittram Hoposon, A.L.S. . ‘ ». 73 Summary of Orders . : : 3 ” 76 The Botanical Districts . . 3 5 ‘5 78 Musci (Mosses) . ; : . By the Rev. C. H. Binsrzap, M.A... ; - 94 Zoology Mollusca (Svail, etc.) . , . By B. B. Woopwarn, F.G.S., F.R.MLS. { - 99 Insecta (Insects) Orthoptera (Earwigs, etc.) . By F. H. Day : : : : : . 101 Neuroptera (Dragonflies) . ; 53 3 102 Hymenoptera (Bees, etc.) . 3s Pa 103 Coleoptera (Beetles) . : ra ” 105

Lepidoptera (Butterflies and

Moths) 3 Diptera (Fhes) . A . 33 Hemiptera (Bugs, etc.) . 7 3

”

XV

117 140

. . . . - 41

CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

Myriapoda (Centipedes) . is . By R.I. Pocock. : . ° . . + 143 Arachnida (Spiders) é ‘ . By F. O. Pickarp-Camspripcz, M.A. : ” - 144 Crustacea (Crabs, ett.) . - . By the Rev. T. R. R. Sregsinc, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. 158 Pisces (Fishes) . . . . By the Rev. H. A. Macruerson, M.A.,M.B.O.U. . 169 Reptilia (Reptiles) and

Batrachia (Batrachians) . ‘ , ” ” ” + 177 Aves (Birds) : P ‘ . ” ” ” - 179 Mammalia (Mammah) . : , ” ” ” + 218

Early Man : : , F . By the late R. S. Fercuson, M.A., LL.M., F.S.A. 225 Pre-Norman Remains : ‘ . By W. G. Cotuincwooo, M.A. . . ° - 253 Introduction to the Cumberland

Domesday, Early Pipe Rolls, and

Testa de Nevill : ‘ . By the Rev. James Witson, M.A. : : + 295 The Text of the Cumberland

Domesday . . . . ” ” ” . . . » 33 6 The Text of the Early Pipe Rolls . 3 $5 $5 , - * - 338 The Text of the Testa de Nevill . 3 3 3 : . : + 419

Xvi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE Derwentwater. Mezzotint by Wittam Hype . ‘ . ‘ : r : - frontispiece Geological Section. Fig. 1 ; ; j 5 : . é . 3 ° - 44 Geological Section. Fig.2 . : F : f : ‘ ; ‘ , . 44 Geological Section. Fig.3 . ; . ‘ . . . ‘ : . . © 45

Geological Section. Fig.4 . : ; F : : . ‘ : , ‘ © 45 Helm Wind. Fig. 1 ‘ ‘ , : : - ‘ ‘ : é a : - 67 Helm Wind. Fig. 2 ‘ a ‘ R : ‘ F 2 3 : i i . 67 Helm Wind. Fig.3 : : ‘ ‘ : i : 67 Tumulus at Old Parks. : ‘ “fill _page gts Shite p» 239 Tumulus at Old Parks: East side of cae No. 33 West side of Stone No. 4; East side of Stone No. 5; Incense Cup. ; . : . full-page plate, facing p. 241

Side Stone, Aspatria Cist ; ' Q ‘ 3 - . . ‘ : : + 242 Tumulus at Old Parks: Incense Cup; Beads . ‘ ‘ ; Sull-page plate, facing p. 243 Stone Circle on Eskdale Moor ; . : . ‘ é i 95 5 i 245

ee 246 Stone Circle at Swinside @ ” ss 4

Stone Circle and Ménhir near Little Salkeld . : - : : ss 5) *s 248

Stone Circle near ae |

Barnscar A 5 2 . : . : . ‘ , 5 Fe ” 250 Incised Slab, Apes : . 4 : . . F : ; : ‘ » 254 Bewcastle Cross ‘ .

The Christ, on Bewcastle tes Pull-poge plait, Jane p. 235

Anglian Shaft, Addingham : ‘ ‘ ; F : - . - i: - 256 Fragment, Workington . : ‘ : ; ‘ ‘ - ‘ P : - 256 Anglian Shaft, Waberthwaite . j A : : ‘ F ‘ ‘ : ‘ ~ (257 Irton Cross. ‘ : : ; : 2 : . : Sull-page plate, facing p. 258 Cross-head from Fratry, Carlisle ‘ : ; ‘ : . : . : » 259 Cross-head from Abbey, Carlisle . ‘ , < A - . ‘ . F - 259 Cross-head from Cathedral, Carlisle . ‘ ‘ ‘ ; 7 é ‘ i i + 259 Cross-head from Brigham ‘ . é : : ‘ ‘ : ; : Z . 259 White Cross, St. John’s, Beckermet .

White Shaft, St. ee Beckermet PROSE RAE OG feat The Norse Cross, St. Bees . 2 : . : ; ‘i . i a‘ ‘: . 262 The Standing Cross, St. Bees . a é ; . : ‘ . : - : . 262 The Kenneth Cross, Dearham. < .

The Two Spiral Shafts in the Vestry, Aipicts SOLIES DE SHOE PO The Standing Cross, Addingham

The Giant’s Thumb, Penrith | Back and Edges of the Inscribed Cross, Beckermet . j : ‘ . é : - 264 Spiral Fragment, Haile Ie - . . . ‘ ; i - i, The Giant’s Grave, Penrith . F F . is Jull-page plate facing p. 265 The Second Shaft, St. Bridget’s, ee : : ‘ . - . A ‘ . 265

Gosforth Cross - : ‘ : . : ‘ i ~ , ; 5 F - 266 xvii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Crucifixion, Gosforth Cross

Vidar, Gosforth Cross

South Side, Gosforth Cross

Loki and Sigun, Gosforth Cross

Heimdal, Gosforth Cross

‘Three Cross-heads at Gosforth

The Fishing Stone, Gosforth

Hogback, Plumbland

Hogback, Aspatria }

The Warrior’s Tomb, Gosforth

The Saint’s Tomb, Gosforth } Hogback, Cross Canonby

Dearham Cross }

Muncaster Cross

Rockcliffe Cross

Dacre Cross

Waberthwaite Cross

The Red Shaft, Cross Gaieliy

The Standing Cross, Aspatria . ‘ The Drilled Shaft, St. John’s, Beckermet } The Dragon Lintel, St. Bees : Cross-head, High Aikton ‘+ The Lawrence Slab, Cross Canonby Socket Stone, Brigham Church

Cross-head, Brigham Vicarage .

The Adam Slab, Dearham

Dearham Font : : Griffin and Cetus, Bridekirk Font ;

The Baptism of Christ, Bridekirk eae The Dolphin Runes

Runes of Bewcastle Cross

The Barnspike Runes

The Bridekirk Runes

The Dearham Runes : . The Inscribed Cross, St. Bridger 8, peseenee Fragment found 1857, Carlisle

The Kirkoswald Fibula

The Brayton Fibula |

Charter of Henry II. to Hubert de Vallibus Charters of Henry II. and Richard I.

LIST OF MAPS

Geological Map, Northern Section Geological Map, Southern Section Orographical Map

Botanical Map

Pre-Historical Map .

Map of Earthworks

Pre-Norman Remains

xviii

PAGE 267 268 268 269 269

full-page plate facing p. 27°

”

”

” ” 27 I ” ”? 27 I ” 2? 271 aF > 272 ” a 273

273

full-page plate, facing p. 274

full-page plate, facing p. 276 full-page plate, facing p. 278

Sull-page plate, facing p. 281

” 99 275

275 275 276

” ” 277 278 279 280

280

281

Sull-page plate, facing p. 282

» 3 306

” ” 320

between pp. 8,9

” 16, 17

40, 41

Sacing p. 73

between pp. 224, 225 ” 232, 233

” 256, 257

PREFACE

OR a long time workers in scientific and archeological research

have been waiting for a History of Cumberland which would

cover the whole field of local investigation, and aim at a more

complete and accurate account of the north-western county than it was possible to give when the older histories were compiled. Valuable additions have been made to our knowledge of the natural history and archeology of the district by the labours during the past thirty years of the Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science and the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Arche- ological Society. But the scientific observations and antiquarian researches of the various workers remain scattered throughout the numerous publi- cations of these societies. Before the materials thus collected could be used, they required to be sifted and arranged by experienced specialists with a view to supervising the work of the local student and of centring interest on the characteristic features of the district. For the first volume of this History the editors have had the co-operation of men who are well acquainted with the county and have taken a prominent part in the work of these societies in the several departments with which their names are identified.

In former histories of Cumberland no systematic effort worthy of the name has been made to examine the physical features of the county or to treat it as a floral or faunal area. With the exception of Hutch- inson, who has recorded the results of some excavations undertaken in the eighteenth century, the archeology of the district has been a sealed book to the older historians of the county. Attempts to reduce to order the confused evidences of prehistoric Man, or to classify the earthworks and early lapidary remains with which Cumberland abounds, have been of a very meagre description. Even now our knowledge must not be considered complete either in the flora and fauna or in the archeology. The less popular orders in the fauna are here as in other counties inade- quately studied and recorded ; and great as has been the activity in recent years in the field of archeological research, much has been lost through carelessness in the past, and the spade has not been used with the frequency and thoroughness that the importance of the subject requires.

The editors regret that in one particular the chronological sequence of the contributions to this volume has been broken. The section on Romano-British Cumberland has had to be held over for the second

XIX

PREFACE

volume. It is believed that the value of the section will be enhanced by the postponement. ; ;

No attempt has been made to disturb popular usage in the spelling of place-names. A reasonable liberty has been allowed to contributors to adopt the methods with which they were familiar. Local nomen- clature as it was employed at different periods of history will be discussed in the Topographical section of this work.

Since the present work was undertaken the promoters have had to deplore the removal by death of two valued contributors, from one of whom much was expected and whose loss to the History is almost irre- parable. Richard Saul Ferguson, chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle, who held for a quarter of a century the hegemonic place in all matters of local knowledge, died before his first contribution was set in type. His unrivalled knowledge of the county, as well as his genial and help-. ful sympathy, have been greatly missed by the colleagues engaged with him in the production of this work. William Hodgson, a man of another type, the venerable botanist, who loved nature in all its moods, passed away after he had given the final touches to his catalogue of the flora of the county. In their respective spheres both men were dis- tinguished, both were Cumbrians by birth and descent, and both deserve an honoured place in the dictionary of Cumbrian biography.

The nature and scope of the Victoria History of Cumberland may best be gathered from a perusal of the General Advertisement which is prefixed to this volume. The main section of the work will consist of the history of the parishes and manors in the county, to which the greater portion of the succeeding volumes will be devoted. The work which has already been done in this field of research will be duly con- sidered in the later volumes.

The editors are anxious to acknowledge their obligations to Mr. J. Horace Round for valued assistance and criticism, and to Mr. George Neilson for not a few suggestions as the contribution on the Domesday Book, Pipe Rolls, and Testa de Nevill was passing through the press. It should be mentioned that the writer of that article is alone responsible for the statements there made. For the right to reproduce certain of the illustrations in this volume they are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. John Murray of Albemarle Street, London ; to the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archeological Society ; and to Mr. C. W. Dymond of Ambleside.

XX

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

HE rugged heights which crown the lofty eminences of central

and western Cumberland have been carved into strange and

fantastic forms by the action of weathering. Stern and for-

bidding as they may appear to be on first acquaintance, they serve to include many beautiful dales within their outlying spurs, while their own surface is sufficiently fertile to afford subsistence to the hardy Herdwick sheep which are characteristic of this region. The Cumbrian group of hills embraces many of the higher summits of England, includ- ing Scaw Fell Pike, 3,208 feet; Scaw Fell, 3,161 feet; Helvellyn, 3,118 feet ; Skiddaw, 3,058 feet ; Great Gable, 2,949 feet ; Saddleback, 2,847 feet; Grassmoor, 2,791 feet; as well as many other eminences of approximate altitude. The scarcity of animal life, or at least of the higher forms of life, upon the mountains of this area has often awakened surprise among those who spy out the beauties of the ‘ Wordsworth country ’; the only wild mammal that deserves notice here is the pine marten, better known to the shepherds of the dales as the ‘clean’ or “sweet mart.’ The raven and the common buzzard are often to be observed crossing from one hill to another, or circling around some dizzy cliff on the face of which their young are being reared. The glory of the local avifauna departed when the Lakeland race of sea eagle became extinct about the end of the eighteenth century ; but a few pairs of the tame and unobtrusive dotterel continue to rear their young upon the slopes of certain favourite mountains.

The Cumbrian mountains include in their fauna many interesting insects, notably the mountain ringlet butterfly, the only a/pime butterfly of which the British Islands can boast. The mountain carpet, the red carpet and the striped twin-spot carpet are certain finds, reposing on the stone dykes of the mountains or resting on the faces of the rocks. The most characteristic Coleoptera of this county are found among the mountains, including such well known species as Carabus glabratus,Calathus micropterus, Pterostichus cethiops, and many others. The lakes, which fill the hollows of the valleys that run among the hills, are celebrated for their abundance of fish. The vendace is only found in Derwentwater and in Bassen-

thwaite Lakes. The gwyniad or skelly swims in large shoals in Ulleswater XXiii c

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

lake, whence single individuals occasionally find their way into the Eden. Buttermere Lake is famous for the charr which are taken in its waters, as also in Ulleswater and Crummock Water.

The mountains of eastern Cumberland form part of the Pennine range. In beauty of outline they are inferior to the more celebrated Cumbrian group, but they are perhaps superior in the variety of their bird-life. The dunlin has never nested to our knowledge among the lake hills proper, but it is one of the most characteristic birds of Cross- fell and neighbouring summits. The snow-bunting is seldom present in any numbers among the Keswick mountains even in winter, but like the twite it assembles in large flocks upon the fell lands of our eastern border.

The Eden valley is a fine, well-watered region, containing the remains of Inglewood Forest, which was formerly the home of many wild red deer. This tract is enriched with very extensive woodlands, which are often visited by crossbills, as well as by some rarer birds. Among typical woodland moths may here be mentioned the great emerald, occurring where birch wood is plentiful, together with the barred red and the tawny-barred angle, both characteristic of fir plantations.

No account of this county would be complete which failed to lay stress upon the mosses or bogs which diversify its surface. Some of these are found in the valleys of the Eden and other rivers, but the most remarkable are those which are found in the north and west of the county, including Solway Flow, a tract of historic interest, Bowness Moss, Salta Moss, Weddholm Flow, and others of greater or less extent. These mosses are covered with heather, varied with stretches of white cotton grass or tussocks of coarse grass, or again by beds of reeds and bulrushes.

These mosses afford a home to many foxes and to a few individuals of the polecat or ‘ foul mart,’ which was at one time very abundant in the ‘soughs’ of the mosses, and in the rough pasture which frequently abuts upon these wastes of moorland. The hen-harrier used to nest upon these vast stretches of morass ; it still visits its ancient haunts in the winter season. The merlin is very faithful in returning every spring to rear its progeny upon the mosses of its choice, which afford a retreat likewise to the short-eared owl. I have found the white eggs of this owl on our mosses and seen the owlets crouching under the shelter of a tuft of heather, blinking their eyes uneasily in the strong sunshine. The golden plover resorts to several of our mosses for breeding purposes, as do the dunlin and the curlew. Of wildfowl the sheldrake has in recent years nested upon our flows in considerable plenty, outnumbering the mallard and the teal, the latter of which is on the decease. The black- headed gull and the black-backed gull form large breeding colonies on the flows and mosses; several pairs of great black-backed gulls reproduce their kind in a few favoured spots. A butterfly always associated with our mosses is the marsh ringlet ; the forms present represent an interest-

_ ing mixture of the three recognized British races of this insect. xxiv

NATURAL HISTORY

Among the larger and better known moths of the mosses, the oak eggar, the fox, the emperor, the clouded buff, and the light tussock may be cited as eminently typical of the ground upon which they are found ; while the gray rustic among the Noctua, and the smoky wave, the gray scalloped bar, and the Manchester treble bar among the Geometre may also be referred to.

When we leave the mosses of the northern and western borders of the county, we enter at once upon the so-called ‘ marshes.’ These are really extensive areas of reclaimed grazing lands, drained by an intricate system of creeks. They extend from Skinburness to Abbey, and on the other side of the river Waver nearly to Kirkbride, and again follow the banks of the Wampool to the sea. Similar marshes stretch from the neighbourhood of Port Carlisle to Burgh Marsh Point and the banks of the Eden ; the latter river unites its waters with those of the Esk below the extremity of Rockliffe marsh, which is washed by the stream of both of these fine salmon rivers. The whole of the Solway marshes are covered with grass, and large portions of their surface glow in summer with the crimson carpeting of the thrift ; many redshanks wheel across the wide expanse of salting with vociferous cries, while their young crouch like those of the peewit under the shelter of any convenient tuft of grass. The shoveler also rears its young upon these marshes. Endless skylarks rise from under the feet of the pedestrian who seeks to cross the marsh, while the common sandpiper chants its familiar notes along the margins of the sandy shores, which are enlivened as autumn draws on by the arrival of hundreds of ringed plover and other little waders. Indeed, the marshes are most frequented by migrating birds in the month of September ; redbreasts skulk in the sides of the creeks ; wheatears dart from turf to turf ; little stints probe the tiny pools or ‘ dubs’ for minute worms ; greenshanks, ruffs, bar-tailed godwits, and other birds of the same family feed on the wide expanse of sand laid bare by the ebbing tide, or resort for shelter to the marshes, as the gravel scaurs upon which they congregate are covered with the swiftly advancing waters. In winter, such hardy birds as curlews and knots replace the waders that are less tolerant of cold ; wild ducks and geese then arrive in large or small flocks and feed upon the marsh grass or the various forms of animal life to be found in the creeks. Many different species of duck resort during the day to a small group of freshwater ‘loughs’ or lakes, which are situated within a short flight of the great estuaries of the Solway Firth. Of these sheets of water, the most favoured is Monkhill Lough, which is resorted to by whooper swans, Bewick’s swans, long-tailed ducks and certain other species. But of all the birds which frequent our marshes no species more deserves mention than the bernacle goose, which has resorted to our marshes from time immemorial to feed upon the finer grasses throughout the colder months of the year. —

Westward of Silloth, the flat shores of the Solway Firth are flanked by a fine belt of sand dunes, among which innumerable rabbits sport and

gambol ; Pallas’s sand grouse showed a marked partiality for these sand XXV

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

dunes in the year 1888. The fine bay which extends from Maryport to Dub Mill is visited by hundreds and even thousands of peewits and other waders in early winter ; it is also much favoured by wild duck in rough weather, when the birds leave the open channels of the firth for more sheltered quarters. The country between Maryport and Whitehaven is singularly devoid of zoological interest ; but the fine red sandstone cliffs which rise immediately above the town of Whitehaven have ere now afforded nesting ledges to the peregrine.’ I have myself stood upon the brink of the high precipices which break the force of the Irish Sea while a pair of breeding peregrines flew around my head in noisy distress. Herring gulls rear their young on the Sandwith rocks, as do the common guillemots, of which unnumbered multitudes are cast up upon our shingled beach during the prevalence of winter gales. Pursuing the coast line southward from St. Bees, we soon arrive at Drigg Common, a famous bird nursery ; here many Sandwich terns lay their beautiful eggs in the hollows of the sand dunes, sharing with the oystercatcher and other birds in the protection bestowed upon them by the laudable thoughtfulness of Lord Muncaster. Flocks of wigeon and other species of ducks frequent the estuaries of the Irt, Mite and Esk, and in a lesser degree of the Duddon ; but the avifauna of this part of the coast has not hitherto proved to be so rich as that of the Solway Firth.

In concluding this sketch of some few of the most remarkable features which present themselves to the naturalist who seeks to investi- gate the animal life of this county, it is only fair to observe that its fauna has been studied with considerable care for more than a hundred years. Dr. Heysham, the famous physician, settled at Carlisle in 1778, and devoted his leisure to the pursuit of local natural history. He spent a vast amount of time in working at the life history of the salmon, dissecting no fewer than 198 ‘brandlins’ in the year 1796. His list of ‘ Cumber- land Animals’ appears from internal evidence to have been completed in 1797. It was published in Hutchinson’s History of Cumberland. Though the doctor was a don vivant, he lived to a good old age, dying in his own house in Carlisle in 1834, in his 81st year. He was of a more stirring and sociable disposition than his son, Thomas Coulthard Heysham, whose name is generally confused with that of his parent ; but though by nature shy and retiring, there can be no doubt that T. C. Heysham was a man of fine intelligence and a most versatile and accomplished naturalist. Though he was more of a collector than a writer, he published an excellent account of the nesting habits of the dotterel, besides contribut- ing a few useful notes to the works upon British birds and British fishes which bear the honoured name of William Yarrell. There cannot be any question that the Heyshams ranked among the best zoologists of the times in which they lived. Their names should always be held in kindly remembrance by Cumbrian naturalists.

1 Henry VIII. used to receive from the abbots of ‘Saynt Maries besides York an annual gift of a ‘caste’ of falcons from this eyrie. After the disestablishment of ‘ the lait monesterie’ the ‘same haukis’ were sent ‘to be presented to the Quene hir grace’ (Hamilton Papers, ii. 442).

Xxvi

GEOLOGY

HE County of Cumberland affords an excellent illustration of

the close connection that exists between the geological structure

of a district and its local history. That such is the case will be

sufficiently evident from a consideration of the fact that the great surface features are in all cases due to causes of a geological nature. It need not be insisted upon here that it is the relative position of the hills, the passes, and the plains, quite as much as the configuration of the coast line, which have repeatedly proved to be factors of prime impor- tance in determining both the locations of the earlier settlers and the movements of those others who in later times have tried to gain a footing in the land. Equally important factors in the evolution of historical events are such matters as the distribution of mineral wealth, the con- ditions relating to water supply, and the suitability or otherwise of particular areas for agricultural purposes. With all of these geology is very intimately concerned. Indeed, one may justly remark that the true sequence of many historical events of far-reaching importance can only be rightly understood by tracing those events back to a starting-point which may date many thousands of years prior to the dawn of history, and which are due entirely to those operations of nature with which it is the special province of the geologist to deal. This statement may be regarded as equivalent to saying that the respective provinces of the archeologist and the geologist of the present day extensively overlap. This of course is most especially the case in that part of the domain of science which includes the study of prehistoric man, in which branch of enquiry it is difficult, or impossible, to indicate precisely where the science of archeology ends and that of geology begins. Under these circumstances it is obvious that the best way of regarding their relative positions is to consider them as continuous with each other, and to treat the geology of a district simply as a record of all the events which have taken place in the interval between the dawn of civilization and the

remotest periods of which there are traces in the past. J I B

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

PROTEROZOIC PERIOD Stturtan Rocks.

B. Kirkby Moor Flags. Bannisdale Slates. Coniston Grits and Flags. A. Pale Slates. Graptolitic Mudstones. Unconformity.

Orpovician Rocks.

B. Bala Volcanic and other Rocks. A. Borrowdale Volcanic Series and Milburn Rocks. Upper part of the Skiddaw Slates.

Camprian Rocks. Lower part of the Skiddaw Slates.

I. Tue Sxippaw States.—(a2) The geological records of Cumber- land date back to an early period in the history of the earth, long prior to the existence of any mountain, valley, or coast feature now to be seen, and also long before any but the very simplest forms of animal or plant life now existing on the earth had come into being. The evidence from which we can draw any safe conclusions regarding the events which occurred in the earlier chapters of the historical geology of Cumberland is, as might be expected, very fragmentary and imperfect, and not a few of the known facts are capable of more interpretations than one. Still after a careful and prolonged search, carried on by many patient in- vestigators in this field of study, a sufficient number of facts has been brought to light to warrant us in drawing a few conclusions with a tolerable amount of certainty. We do know that the earliest records of Cumberland are by no means the oldest even in Britain ; but, omitting any further reference to these areas outside the county, we may begin by considering the facts presented by the vast pile of slates, mudstones, and grits, which form the upland area lying to the east and the south-west of Bassenthwaite, and which includes Grassmoor, Saddleback, and Skiddaw (or Skidda). To these, the most ancient rocks of Cumberland, the name Skiddaw Slates is usually applied. Internal evidence supplied by these rocks makes it quite clear that they are the broken, much-disturbed, and greatly-altered, representatives of what was at one time a vast pile of marine sediments, representing the mud, sand and shingle brought down to adelta by a large river draining a great tract of land some distance away. Every particle of these old rocks represents what was formerly part of some older solid rock constituting that land, and its present position is due entirely to the prolonged action of rain and rivers upon that old land surface. The evidence further assures us that the area now occupied by Cumberland was in those remote times being gradually lowered by earth movements, which proceeded at a very slow rate, and which, on the whole, kept pace with the deposition of the sediment. Occasionally a somewhat less slow subsidence than usual brought about a greater depth of water ; while at other times the sediments forming

the old delta pushed seaward a little faster than the subsidence carried 2

GEOLOGY

them downward. Probably if we could have measured the rate at which these movements were progressing we should have found them almost imperceptible, even when the observation extended over centuries. At whatever rate the subsidence may have proceeded it continued through a sufficiently long period to allow of the accumulation of layer upon layer until a pile several thousands of feet in thickness was accumulated.

At a late period in the history of these rocks there seems to be evidence that some upheaval took place, and there was laid down one or more bands of pebbles, of which bands, now hardened into conglomerate, we have now traces near Keswick, and also at Cockermouth and elsewhere. After that followed a period of somewhat deeper water conditions, during which finer mud subsided to the sea bottom here. It was chiefly during © this period that the animals lived of which fuller mention will be made presently.

(6) The peculiar conditions under which these old sediments were deposited extended in one direction beyond where the Isle of Man is now, and, in the other, into north Cumberland. It is possible, however, that they did not extend much farther north. It may well prove some day that the earlier deposits of this age are contemporaneous with the upper part of the Durness Limestone of north-western Scotland. In this case there must have been deeper water conditions in that direction, and therefore, possibly, the old land from whose waste the Skiddaw Slates were derived may have lain to the south-east. Be that as it may, we can feel much more certain regarding the nature of the sea bottom, and the physical geography in general of the area adjoining the Solway during the latter part of the period when the Skiddaw Slate was being formed. We have records in the southern uplands of Scotland (the old Valentia of the Romans) of an important series of volcanic outbursts taking place on the ocean floor and apparently in deep water. There is no clear evidence that these volcanic conditions extended into the area where Keswick is now, although some volcanic rocks in the Caldbeck Fells may eventually prove to belong to this period. The conditions that obtained in what is now north Cumberland at this period may have borne a close resemblance to those now found on the eastern margin of the Indian Ocean, where volcanic rocks, rocks of oceanic types, and terrigenous deposits from the land are being laid down in close con- tiguity to each other, and sometimes change their relative places.

Beneath what are now the Border Counties there lies buried at a great depth another phase of sedimentation, of which it is probable representatives may occur in Cumberland. We have good reason to believe that while the middle part of the Skiddaw Slates was being formed, the ocean floor in the northern part of the area sank to a vast depth, so that the sea bottom there at the period under consideration lay for a vast length of time at a depth of between two and three miles below sea level. The nature of the deposit that accumulated there is in all essential respects comparable with the Radiolarian Ooze which is being slowly formed in the greater ocean depths at the present day, especially

3

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

in the central Pacific, as well as in those parts of the Indian Ocean where the ocean floor lies at a greater depth than 2,500 fathoms. To under- stand the full significance of the fact a brief digression is needed. In nearly all the warmer parts of the ocean surface-waters there exist vast numbers of minute animals of lowly organization (the Protozoa), some of which secrete from the sea water carbonate of lime, which forms the harder and outer parts of the creature (the Foraminifera) ; while another allied set of minute animals secrete from the fine clay present in all sea water corresponding shells of siliceous composition. These latter animals referred to are the Radiolaria. When these Protozoa die, their harder parts slowly descend through the sea water, and in course of time may sink to a great depth below the surface. But as this quiet drizzle of shelly matter settles towards the bottom, the sea water begins to exercise a solvent effect upon the calcareous shells, the effect increasing with the depth below the surface ; while the associated siliceous shells are not so acted upon by the water. As a consequence, few, if any, of the cal- careous shells survive a descent of more than 2,500 fathoms, while the siliceous shells that set out on the same journey with them reach the bottom undissolved. In other words, below 2,500 fathoms few or no calcareous organisms are to be found, those of siliceous composition alone remaining. The Radiolarian Ooze of the present day is found only at depths exceeding 2,500 fathoms. Geologists usually reason on the basis that principles founded upon facts observed now hold good equally well in similar cases in the past. That is to say, a Radiolarian Ooze, what- ever its age, denotes a depth at the place where it was found of more than 2,500 fathoms. Now, a Radiolarian Ooze of well marked char- acter and of considerable thickness, lies close above, and is partly inter- stratified with, the deep-sea volcanic rocks just mentioned as contempo- raneous with some of the Skiddaw Slate rocks near Keswick. It is quite likely that a cherty deposit found in connection with the Skiddaw Slates near Ousby may represent this deep sea deposit here. At any rate, we can feel sure of this point, that at the period when some of the slates near Skiddaw were being deposited as layers of fine clay at the bottom of a moderately deep sea, there existed a great oceanic depression only a few miles to the north. This again suggests that the old land at this period lay somewhere to the south of Cumberland.

The Radiolarian deposit referred to may some day be detected in the Lake district itself. Whether that prove to be the case or not, we have in this old oceanic ooze one more of the many proofs that are coming to light in various parts of the world, and in connection with rocks of all ages, that oceanic areas and continents have really changed places, and that, too, more than once at the same spot.

(c) During the latter part of the time when the oceanic phase of geographical conditions prevailed near the site of the English border, the parts of Cumberland a few miles farther south began to be the theatre of a series of changes of a different kind. A slow movement of upheaval of a very local character set in, and there is reason to believe that the

4

GEOLOGY

effect of this movement in the course of time was to ridge up the sea bottom by slow degrees until, from shallow water, it passed into land. The immediate effect was to bring about the waste and destruction of the newly-exposed sediments by the combined action of the waves and the subaerial waste brought about by rain and the agents working with it. There are several facts connected with the behaviour of the rocks in the district on each side of the present Bassenthwaite Water which seem to indicate that the local upheaval referred to was one of a series, which commenced at an early stage in the history of the rocks there, and was continued intermittently, while a considerable subsidence was in progress in the area to the south. But the full discussion of this matter is of too technical a nature to be treated in an article like the present one. These local upheavals were intimately connected with the evolution of an im- portant group of volcanoes which finally grew up so as to extend over a large part of Cumberland, and to which attention will be more fully directed further on.

(d) Leaving for the present the consideration of the events which followed the advent of these volcanic conditions we may notice here the more prominent features connected with the life of the period. Records of the vegetable life of the period are too scanty to enable us to form any very clear notion of what it was like ; but such fragments as are known suggest that the more lowly forms of vegetation, little higher in grade than the seaweeds, were predominant. Of animal life more is known. It seems from the available evidence that nothing approaching vertebrate forms of life had yet come into existence ; and that, in the sea, at any rate, the most highly organized beings were creatures more or less closely allied to the Nautilus. On the fine mud which formed the sea bottom there certainly lived a considerable variety of the curious jointed-legged creatures which are known as Trilobites, from the characteristic three- fold arrangement of their larger parts. These in some respects find their nearest allies at the present day in the King Crab (Limulus), and perhaps also in the Spiders and Scorpions. Remains of Trilobites are occasion- ally found on various platforms in the Skiddaw Slates. The writer of this chapter figured in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, ix. No. 7, all that were known at that time. With these Arthropods lived some few lowly forms of Crustacea ; and there were also some representatives of the important group of Brachiopoda, which are animals distantly allied on the one hand to the Worms, and on the other to the Mollusca. But the best known fossils from the Skiddaw Slates are those remarkable zoophytes which are known collectively as Graptolites. These animals were, in many respects, not very different from the Sea Firs of the pre- sent day ; and, like those so-called ‘ seaweeds,’ lived at the sea bottom in little colonies, sometimes attached to some stony object, but more often anchored to the mud by means of a special arrangement with which they are provided for that purpose. Both geologically and zoologically these obscure organisms are objects of considerable importance. Those from the Skiddaw Slates have lately been described in an important paper

5

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

published in the Quarterly Fournal of the Geological Society of London, vol. x., by Miss Ellis.

II. We may now turn to the fuller consideration of the volcanic episode to which brief reference has just been made, and in connection with which so much that is of geological interest in the present Lake district is intimately concerned. The history of the volcanoes cannot be completely made out ; but we already know quite enough to give us a much clearer view, as we look back into the past, than is possible in the case of the Skiddaw Slates. One thing is quite clear: the volcanoes began with a series of extremely violent eruptions, in the course of which the explosions tore away vast quantities of the older sediments through which the volcanic vents arose, and ejected those fragments to a con- siderable distance from their starting-point. It is not a little remarkable that fragments of lava in many cases form but a small proportion of these ejected materials from the earlier-formed vents. Fragments of the Skid- daw Slates abound in these old tuffs, thereby proving, if proof were still needed, that the volcanic rocks are of /ater date than the rock referred to.

On theoretical grounds we may suppose that these violent paroxys- mal explosions were due to the water finding its way down through the outer zones of the lithosphere (or rocky crust of the earth) to the inner zones, where, from one or other of several possible causes, there existed a temperature sufficiently high to produce conditions favourable to the generation of new compounds. Heated waters, containing but a small percentage of the alkalies present in combination in sea water, are com- petent to dissolve almost any rock material known, and are able to do so at a comparatively low temperature—far below that which lavas have when first poured out of a volcano. A compound of the nature referred to possesses violent explosive properties, and, indeed, can only be kept from exploding by the influence of enormous pressure. If by any ter- restrial movement the pressure at the critical time happens to be relieved, liquefaction at once commences, and steam in a highly explosive condition is generated throughout the area where the pressure has been eased off. Under these circumstances the fluid rock material begins to eat its way in the direction of least resistance, and finally reaches the surface, where the pressure is relieved by a succession of more or less violent detonations, whose general nature may be likened to that of boiler explosions. One of the determining causes of both a local rise of underground tempera- ture and a spasmodic relief of pressure must have been the local bendin of the outer part of the lithosphere to which reference has already been made. Indeed, it seems unnecessary to invoke any other factors in the generation of volcanic action than this local conversion of the energy of motion into heat energy, combined with the downward transference by osmosis of alkaline waters from the floor of the ocean, and the subsequent release of the imprisoned gases by the local and spasmodic relief of pres- sure which accompanies the folding mentioned above.

The Cumberland volcanoes were probably small to begin with, and

probably there were several in an irregular line ranging southward 6

GEOLOGY

through the site of Keswick. But we have no further evidence upon this point than the analogy afforded by the behaviour of volcanoes at the present day, and the fact that volcanoes of the same period occur also in Wales.

After the first violent paroxysm and the discharge of fragments of sedimentary rock into the air, the relief of pressure below the surface appears to have favoured the liquefaction of the rock. Under these conditions, that heated mixture of the component gases of water and liquefied rock of which lavas consist, began to make its way to the sur- face. But the explosive forces pent up below were so vastly more powerful than was needed for merely propelling the fluid mass to the surface, that they sufficed, each time the pressure was relieved, to drive the fluid rock with terrific violence to a great height—probably miles— into the air, whence, as the force expended itself and gravitation came more into play, the coarser fragments of lava, now hardened by their passage through the cool air, fell back in great piles upon the surface, close to the orifice whence they were ejected, while the finer material was distributed far and wide by the action of the wind.

The evidence shows that a succession of such explosive outbursts took place, with pauses of varying length between each, during which marine sediments were deposited here and there to a small thickness between such of the volcanic mounds as reached to no great height above the sea.

Eventually the eruptions occasionally assumed a less violent char- acter, and on these occasions a quiet outpouring of lava took place, followed in turn by more explosive outbursts and the dispersal of frag- mentary material over an increasingly large area. There can be but little doubt that the central area of volcanic action soon rose to a suffi- cient height to stand well above the waves, and that it probably con- tinued to maintain that elevation while the additions to the surface of the volcano kept pace with the depression caused by the general subsi- dence which set in at an early stage. ;

(2) Several minor events occurred in connection with the central por- tion of the volcano, some of which have to be noticed here. Amongst the effects of these may be mentioned the curious ‘ faulting’ so well seen in some of the Cumberland ‘green slates,’ and also the crumpling and contortion that accompanies these ‘ faults.’ Both appear to be due to the fact that a period during which fine volcanic dust was ejected was followed by another when floods of molten rock poured over the sides of the crater and down the slopes of the cone, the flood of lava thus rolling over the lately-deposited tuff. The effect upon these unconsolidated beds of rock fragments was naturally to produce the same result as if a gigantic road-roller had passed over them. The beds were folded, crumpled and fractured, and, being compressed obliquely downwards, the faults generally took the form of reversed faults. Thrusts due to the flow of the lavas affected the tuffs beyond the lava flows themselves, and it therefore frequently happened that a bed of tuff which had been frac-

7

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

tured and crumpled at one stage was soon after that covered by other layers of fine dust which had, of course, not shared in the disturbance. The ‘green slates’ of Tilberthwaite and of many other localities in the Lake district show these interesting records of contemporaneous disturbance very beautifully, and museum specimens, or even specimens that will go into a waistcoat pocket, may easily be obtained which will show these features well.

Another set of features of general interest connected with the tuffs has been produced by the action of rain, or of aqueous vapour from the volcano, chilled by its upward passage into the air. Such vapour condenses readily upon the cooler and finer fragments of volcanic dust in the upper part of the column shot out from the volcano during erup- tion. Once such a nucleus is formed it tends to enlarge by the addition of more water and more dust as the pellet descends. Finally it reaches the surface as a small ball of mud, and may plump down into the fine dust and there become entombed. There are many examples of this kind, especially near Ambleside.

Also it often happens that the torrential rains precipitated from the column during an eruption wash vast quantities of the finer material down the slopes of the cone, and give rise to such floods of volcanic mud as those (/ava @agua) which overwhelmed Herculaneum during the Plinian eruption of Vesuvius. Many beds of rock of origin similar to this occur in connection with the Cumberland volcanoes.

It is from the combined results of these explosive eruptions, violent or gentle, from the outpourings of the floods of lava, from the action of surface causes, and from the forcible injection of materials underground derived from the volcanic focus, that the great pile of rocks was formed, out of whose much-altered remains the finest scenery of the Lake dis- trict has since been carved. It may be remarked here that these rocks underwent many changes and modifications long before they were finally exposed. These will have to be considered in chronological order, and will be therefore referred to again.

The volcanic eruptions were by no means continuous, but were often separated by long periods of repose, during which surface agencies modified the slopes of the volcanoes. Furthermore, it is very unlikely that the volcanoes attained their maturity without the episodes of des- truction which almost every other volcano, ancient or modern, seems at some time or other in its history to have undergone.

The length of time required for the growth of this stage of the Cumberland volcano must have been very great indeed. Notwithstand- ing the apparent evidence to the contrary, the growth of a volcano is b no means rapid. Taking one volcano with another, it would seem a fair estimate of their rate of growth if it is set at one foot in 300 years. The Cumberland volcano certainly rivalled Etna in dimensions ; and Mr. Ward’s estimate of 12,000 feet as the maximum thickness of

these rocks is, if anything, below, rather than above, the actual thick- ness to be found.

8

HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

GEOLOGICAL M.

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THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND

GEOLOGY

It may be well to state here that the material shot out from a vol- cano during an explosive eruption is called tuff (or ‘ash’) in the cases where the material falls outside of the crater, quite without regard to whether that material is coarse or fine. The material which fills up an old vent or ‘neck’ is called agglomerate, whether it is coarse or fine. The term /ava is restricted to the floods of rock which have poured out of the vents over the surface of the cone; while the same kind of material injected below the surface gives rise to a si// if it consolidates in the form of a more or less horizontal sheet, and to a dyke if it consolidates in a wall-like mass.

The Cumberland volcanic series consists of rocks of Upper Are- nig and Llandeilo age. Lithologically, the greater part of the rocks consist of andesites and andesite tuffs, which approach basalts in the earlier part. Furthermore, there is a newer and higher volcanic group of different lithological character associated with the rocks just noticed, and to which fuller reference will need to be made further on.

(4) In the meantime we have to notice a group of rocks which are contemporaneous with those of volcanic origin, and which consist mainly of sediments. To enable the reader to understand their relation to the rocks just noticed, he is asked to bear in mind that a volcano is neces- sarily limited in horizontal extent, and that the lava streams which reach its flanks, as well of course as the tuffs beyond, will tend to be laid down alternately with marine sediments if the volcano is anywhere near the sea, and that the relative proportion of volcanic to sedimentary matter diminishes as we advance outward from the central area until it finally comes to nothing. It must be obvious on reflection that this must have been the case as much in connection with the volcanoes of the past as it is with those of the present.

We are therefore quite prepared to find that while the old Cum- berland volcano was gradually rearing its cone above the level of the sea the deposition of sediment went on contemporaneously on the sea bottom outside its flanks. Nearer to the sphere of volcanic action the old sedi- ments occasionally received showers of fine tuff which had been wafted far out to sea during explosions of a more violent character than usual. Such volcanic material thus became mixed in every proportion with the sedimentary matter—the proportion of the former to the latter in- creasing relatively to the nearness of the cone. To put these statements into a terser form, we may say that on the flanks of the volcano there was a passage from purely volcanic to purely sedimentary material, chiefly through interstratification.

Hence we may safely conclude that wherever such passage beds occur, they mark the seaward flank of the volcano of that particular period.

In north-eastern Cumberland the map shows that there is a narrow strip along the foot of the Cross Fell range along which some of the oldest rocks of the district have been abruptly elevated to the surface.

9

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

These afford a most important insight into the history of Cumberland during the remote period under consideration. The nature of some of these rocks clearly points to the presence of geographical conditions in which sediments of marine origin were deposited alternately with layers of the fine dust which had been transported seawards by the winds during some of the more violent eruptions of the old volcanoes, but at too great a distance to be reached by the lava streams. That these alternations of old marine sediments, fine tuffs, and mixtures of both, are contemporaneous with the volcanic rocks in the heart of the Lake district, is shown in the most unmistakable manner by the fossils which they contain. Their general nature indicates quiet deposition on a steadily subsiding ocean floor at no great distance from a group of vol- canoes. As it is often convenient to employ some definite name for the larger subdivisions of a great pile of rocks like these, taken from the locality where the rocks are now best seen, the present author several years ago proposed for these sedimentary equivalents of the volcanic series the name of the Milburn Rocks. They are well seen below Cross Fell, and they are particularly well exposed in John Robinson’s Pastures, on the north side of the village of Milburn: whence the name. Their aggregate thickness cannot be made out with certainty, but it can hardly be less than between 5,000 and 6,000 feet. The principal fossils are Graptolites, Trilobites and Brachiopoda, all of Lower Llandeilo types.

The fact that we have perfectly clear evidence of marine conditions and of continued subsidence within twenty miles of the centre of the volcano would prepare us for the idea that the later stages of volcanic activity coincided with a subsidence at least of part of the volcanic area itself. And, further, the facts quite justify us in regarding the volcano as one which was only enabled to keep its summit above the waves by the fact that the eruptions piled up the volcanic material at a rate which, on the whole, kept pace with the rate of lowering of the sea floor until at least the later stages in the history of the volcano.

(c) Volcanic areas usually coincide with areas of unequal sub- sidence, and that of Cumberland appears to have been no exception to the general rule. Some of the geological facts which may be observed in the areas around Bassenthwaite seem to point to the conclusion already referred to, that this area did not sink at the same rate as the area around where Ambleside is now. There may even have been some upheaval in the northern part while subsidence was going on in the south. To put this statement into another form, we may say that, while the southern end of the area sank as fast as the volcanic material was piled upon it, the northern end either remained stationary or else was slowly ridged up from the sea bottom, and thus was wasted by the weather and the sea almost as fast as it rose. The idea is not easy to grasp, and would not need to be again referred to here if the fact had not an important bearing upon some events of later date to which subsequent reference will be made.

(¢@) There is some doubt as to the exact nature of the events which 10

GEOLOGY

succeeded the period of maximum development of the volcano, for the structure of the rocks was highly complicated to begin with, and the complexity has been considerably increased by later events. But a broad review of the facts, by the light obtained from the structure of similar rocks of the same age which occur elsewhere, seems to point to there having ensued a period during which the volcano was apparently extinct, and the earth movements may have been taking the form of upheaval over the entire area. During this period of quiescence the whole sur- face underwent much of that waste which invariably arises from pro- longed exposure of rocks above the level of the sea. To the present author the facts appear to suggest that in the area now represented by northern Cumberland the remnants of the older volcano were exposed long enough to be wasted away entirely, and, with these remnants, were also removed much of the older rock which underlay the volcano.

Subsequently, another group of volcanoes, different in character from the first, and in form and arrangement more like the ‘ puys’ of central France, broke out here and there over the whole area, and their lava streams and tuffs were spread out across the wasted surface of those older rocks to which reference has just been made. Then subsidence again set in, and some bands of sediment and one or two bands of lime- stone were deposited on the sea floor both on and amongst the rocks of volcanic origin. On the southern flanks of Roman Fell, in West- morland, there is displayed a fine series of alternating sedimentary and volcanic rocks, which mark this phase in the history of Cumberland ; and it is just possible that the same kind of rocks may occur in still greater development in the Caldbeck Fells and near Melmerby in north Cumberland. The character of the fossils which occur in the sedi- mentary rocks associated with these latter volcanic rocks indicates that their formation commenced in Lower Bala times, and was continued until late on in the Upper Bala period. The rocks in question are con- temporaneous with a vast thickness of strata of the same kind which occur in Wales. In Cumberland at least they appear to lie unconform- ably upon the older rocks beneath: in other words, an upper volcanic series there lies discordantly upon a lower.

It may be well to state at this point that the older group of rocks heretofore noticed, including the upper part of the Skiddaw Slate, the Milburn Rocks, and the older volcanic rocks of the Lake district (the Borrowdale Series) are comprehended in the Lower Ordovician group ; while the latter series, including the associated limestone, shales, and other sedimentary rocks, are here ranked as Upper Ordovician : that is to say, in Cumberland the Bala Rocks are unconformable to those of Llandeilo and Arenig age.

Neither of these volcanic episodes appears to have extended far to the north, as in the southern uplands of Scotland the rocks formed during this period are mainly fine-grained muds, slowly formed on the floor of the ocean at a great depth below the surface, rocks of volcanic origin

being almost unrepresented. II

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

Some scraps of evidence obtainable in the Craven area seem to indi- cate that the older set of volcanic cones may not have extended far in that direction either. But that the later (Upper Ordovician) set was not far away from that area is shown by an interesting group of sediments which occurs there, and in which are mingled some of the finer products of the chief explosions of the volcano, which therefore could not have been far distant at this time.

(e) Life during Ordovician Times.—So far as is known at present no animal of higher zoological grade than the Invertebrata had come into existence during Ordovician times. The highest forms of life yet found belong to the Mollusca, and to that section of the Mollusca (the Cephalopoda) which includes the Nautilus of the present day. The Arthropoda were represented mainly by some Phyllocarida, and by an abundance and great variety of Trilobites, which reached their maximum development during this period, and whose different forms have a zonal value of much the same character as the Graptolites. Brachiopoda were also very abundant. All the other classes of the Invertebrata were represented. Of the plants we know as yet but little, and we are not likely to know much more, seeing that most of the strata of which re- mains exist were formed in the sea or else are of volcanic origin.

(f) The events briefly summarised in the foregoing paragraphs must have required for their accomplishment from first to last a period of time of inconceivable length, if we may judge by the importance of the changes in both the inorganic and the organic worlds which took place in the meantime. Group after group of invertebrate organisms was slowly evolved from pre-existent forms, its various species reached their maximum of development, gradually passed away, and gave place to others. Oceanic areas and land more than once exchanged places. Mountain masses were slowly built up, elevated above the sea, and in the course of long ages wasted away, and their materials were ¢ dually transferred to that cradle of new lands, the ocean floor, there to be again used up in the formation of later rocks. Geologists, fully cognisant of all these changes, and duly taking into account the rate at which such changes are proceeding now, may well be pardoned if they regard the time represented by these Upper and Lower Ordovician Rocks of Cumber- land as one of enormous length. The author of this article, in his address to the Royal Physical Society, has estimated it at 45,000,000 of years.’

III. THe Sequence or Events DuRING SiLur1AN Times.—(a) Over a large part of Britain there is evidence that the close of Ordovician times was marked by considerable disturbance and slow upheaval of the land. In some localities, large areas consisting of the previously-formed rocks were upheaved, and exposed for lengthy periods to the wasting influence of atmospheric causes, and the process continued until, in some parts, a

1 See Goodchild, ‘Some Geological Evidence Regarding the Age of the Earth,’ Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., xiii. p. 302. 12

GEOLOGY

thickness of many thousands of feet of the older rocks was stripped off. Thus rocks of very different ages came to be exposed at different parts of the surface. At the conclusion of this period, which must, if we may judge by what took place in the meantime, have been a period of immense length, there began a second great period of subsidence be- neath the ocean, and the deposition of a new set of strata. The rocks referred to are those which now form most of the southern part of the Lake district. They are exposed here and there, also in some parts of Cumberland, and therefore call for notice here.

(4) The earliest chapter in the history is recorded in an old bed of shingle, which evidently marks the rolling and wearing action of the sea upon the loose fragments of rock which were present on the surface as the land quietly sank beneath the waves.

Then follows a stratum of great interest, thin though it be—the well-known Graptolitic Mudstone. This is a bed of what was originally fine mud, evidently formed at a great depth below the level of the sea, and in very quiet water, far beyond the influence of tides or currents, and outside the zone of deposition of any muddy outflows brought by rivers from the land. On the bed of fine clay which slowly accumu- lated on the sea floor, there lived one set after another of those curious organisms already referred to as Graptolites. No doubt these, like their predecessors, lived in little colonies, each moored to the bottom in much the same way as seaweeds are attached to stones and shells on the sea floor of the present day. But beyond the fact that they pertained to the same subdivision of the animal kingdom as those which preceded them, these and their predecessors had but little in common. Every one of the older forms that had come into existence had gradually died out, and those which lived during the earlier part of the Silurian Period were different in many essential particulars from the graptolites of Ordo- vician times. A few Brachiopods, and some hardy Crustaceans, lived in the ocean depths along with the Graptolites. There are many good reasons for believing that one generation of these Graptolites succeeded another for a very long time without undergoing any marked change in character, or without becoming extinct. Moreover, in the quiet depths of the ocean, where the conditions remained uniform, as they usually do now over a very large area, the same species of Graptolites were to be found far and wide wherever the nature of their surroundings remained uni- form. For this reason as well as others Graptolites have been found to be of great value as affording a clue to the particular chapter of the geological record which they represent. To put this statement into another form: these Graptolites lived over very extensive areas of the sea bottom, but they throve best only where the water was perennially clear, or, in other words, where only a very thin film of sediment found its way to the ocean floor in the course of a century. In many cases it would appear that the chief deposit there consisted of the remains of the Graptolites themselves, mingled with a very small proportion of extremely fine mud, the deposition of which was characterized as much

13

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

by its uniformity of rate as by the enormously long time required for the accumulation of a single inch. There are many analogous phenomena recently brought to light in connection with the deep sea oozes of modern times. By careful study and comparison of these facts over a large area geologists have now obtained sufficient knowledge to be able to state with certainty at what particular epoch in the Silurian Period any given species of Graptolite lived. Or, conversely, if they find the Graptolite, its occurrence informs them unerringly of the geological dates of the film of clay in which that particular species was entombed.

These quiet deep-water conditions remained unaltered through a long period of time. In the meantime important changes of the sea bottom were in progress elsewhere, and in course of time these gra- dually affected the area under consideration. The next change gave rise to a deposit which, although evidently formed in quiet and deep water, does not appear to have afforded the conditions suitable for the growth of organisms of any kind. ‘The deposit in question took the form of very fine grey mud, which in some respects appears to correspond to one of the grey oceanic oozes of the present day, or, possibly, to the fine azoic mud which is slowly accumulating in the depths of the Black Sea. In its present compacted and altered condition we know it by the name of the Pale Slates—a not altogether appropriate name seeing that, al- though characterized by a grey tint, the rocks rarely form what may be called slates, in any sense of the word.

While the deposition of the Pale Slates went on in the tranquil depths of the sea over the area now under consideration, coarser sedi- ments, laid down in shallower water, were deposited in the areas to the north of the Border; and the same occurred also in what is now the western part of Wales. The total thickness of the Pale Slates rarely exceeds 600 feet ; but the deposits found nearer the land attain a thickness in both Wales and Scotland of some thousands of feet. It is only near the upper and the lower limits that the Pale Slates contain any traces of life.

After this deep-water and azoic episode in the history of Cumber- land there followed a long period of conditions of moderate depth, during which subsidence went on concurrently with the deposition of mud, clay and sand, which, as in other cases, represents the materials worn off the land—wherever that may have been—and transported to the sea by the agency of rivers. It was during this period the Coniston Flags, Coniston Grits, Bannisdale Slates and the Kirkby Moor Flags, etc., were formed. The thickness of sediments found in this way cannot be less than 15,000 feet in the north-west of England, and may have been more even than that.

To-day, these old sediments, indurated and changed in many ways, are known by the following names, counting from the lowest upward, and have at least the thicknesses stated : Graptolitic Mudstone and Pale Slates, 600 feet; Coniston Flags and Grits, 8,000 feet ; Bannisdale Slates, 4,000 feet; Kirkby Moor Flags, 3,000 feet. No traces of

14

GEOLOGY

volcanic action of any kind have yet been found here in rocks of this age. Life of the Silurian Period.—As the Ordovician Period was one of great length many important changes in the organic world took place. If, to the time required for the evolution of these changes, we add the enormously long interval represented by the unconformity ; and, again, to these, add the time required for the accumulation of the Silurian Rocks, we may be prepared to find that the slow march of organic evolution had given rise to many and important developments in the organic world. Most of the Trilobites, a group so characteristic of the different zones of the Ordovician Rocks, had now died out ; the last of the Graptolites dis- appeared near the close of the Silurian Period, and so with various other groups not so conspicuous as fossils. On the other hand, the Arthropoda developed along a new line, and we find the great water-scorpions, or Eurypterids, amongst the dominant forms of invertebrate life. Near the close of the Silurian Period true vertebrates of low zoological grade, make their appearance. They are represented by several varied types of fishes, all primitive creatures belonging to the very lowest ranks of the same group as the sharks, skates, and rays of the present time. These Silurian fishes can hardly be said to be provided with any true fins except the tail.

Of the plants of the Silurian Period, again, we know but little. The few traces of plants that occur in the Cumberland rocks of this age were probably of the nature of seaweeds.

(c) Taking into account the thickness of rock stripped off by de- nudation in the interval between the close of the Ordovician Period and the commencement of Silurian times, and adding to that the time estimated to be required for the formation of the Silurian sediments, the author of this article considers that a period of 68,000,000 of years is required.

DEUTEROZOIC PERIOD CarBoniFerous Rocks.

B. Upper, including the true Coal Measures and the Millstone Grit. A. Lower, including the Yoredale Rocks, the Mountain Limestone, and the Lower Limestone Shale.

Op Rep Rocks. B. ‘The Upper Old Red Sandstone. Great Unconformity. A. Traces of the Caledonian Old Red (Granites, etc.). Great Unconformity.

IV. Pre-Devonian Unconrormity.—(a2) Hitherto we have had no clue to any of the geographical conditions that prevailed during the periods noticed, except those mentioned in the foregoing notes. But as we trace the history of Cumberland nearer and nearer to our own times, more complete evidence is available, and we are able to get a much clearer insight into the nature of several events of the past. This is especially true of the period that succeeded Silurian times. The evi- dence afforded by rocks of this age in southern Scotland informs us that

15

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

after the prolonged period of subsidence, during which the Silurian Rocks were formed, the sea bottom remained for a time stationary, then began a set of earth movements which, at great depths, gradually and quietly compressed the lately-formed strata into folds, closer and closer, as the compression continued, and at the same time the lateral thrusts forced up the surface, so that by degrees great ridges of considerable extent were elevated above the level of the sea. Narrow areas of sea water were thus isolated by the upheaval, and gradually passed from the condition of lagoons into that of shallow inland lakes. As the movement extended, the whole of the part under notice gradually passed into the state of a continental area, from which the sea margin receded farther and farther as the upheaval slowly progressed. One of the consequences of these conditions was that the annual rainfall gradually decreased in amount, and fell only at irregular and often distant intervals. As a consequence, vegetation could no longer thrive; land animals, such as there were at the time, were forced to migrate to districts where the cli- matal conditions were more favourable; and hence, by degrees, the whole area gradually passed into an upland desert region far removed from the sea. When it did happen to rain the amount precipitated in a given time was often very large ; so that after one of these occasional thunder- storms roaring torrents were quickly formed, and soon tore their way down the hill slopes, thereby spreading great masses of torrential debris on the plains around. In the intervals between these spates the dry climate gave rise to great diurnal extremes of temperature, which caused any rocks exposed to their influence to expand rapidly with the heat during the day and to contract to the same extent at night, as a con- sequence of the rapid radiation which always takes place where there is but a small amount of moisture in the air. In other words, the lately formed marine sediments, now consolidated into stone, were shivered into fragments by the diurnal extremes of temperature, in much the same manner as they are in the Syrian wadies of to-day. The wind blew the rock fragments about from place to place, bowling them along and against each other until they were worn into perfectly-rounded grains, and it finally heaped these sands up in great ridges much as it does in all desert regions to-day.

Lakes were represented here and there by a few shallow pools, each one of the same nature as the schatts of Algeria, or the shallow inland lakes of the Aralo-Caspian area of Central Asia, and containing more or less saline waters, such as are now to be found in desert regions in various parts of the world. There is no reason to suppose that the average daily temperature was higher than we experience in these islands now, but the maxima and minima were much greater, and it was certainly much hotter in the sun of a day and equally colder at night, and in this respect more like the climate of Natal than it is with us now.

Analogy with modern desert areas quite warrants us in picturing to our mind’s eye the skies of these days in ancient Cumberland as usually

cloudless, and as characterized rather by a yellow haze, due to the vast 16

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GEOLOGY

quantities of fine dust constantly suspended in the air, than by the tender blue of the purer skies with which we are familiar.’

Perhaps it may be as well to mention in this place, that concurrently with the progress of these events in the northern parts of the kingdom, geographical conditions of a different kind existed further south and south- east. In the areas referred to, marine sediments, including important beds of marine limestone, were in process of formation. These are well seen in the Rhineland, and almost equally well in Devonshire, where they were first studied by geologists. For the latter reason the southern type of rocks is termed the Devonian Rocks, and the period when they were formed, the Devonian Period. Henceforth, therefore, the events now under description will be referred to here as having occurred during the Devonian Period. But the northern type of rocks, which consist largely of sandstones of a dominant red colour, will still be referred to as the Old Red Sandstone Rocks.

(4) The Devonian Period in the northern parts of the kingdom was, as already mentioned, one of considerable terrestrial disturbances, which manifested themselves by great local upheavals, accompanied by earth- quakes, and followed by volcanic outbursts, which eventually assumed extensive proportions. With the volcanoes themselves, as well as with the stratified rocks that grew up with them, we happen not to be very much concerned, for reasons which will be stated presently. But the former presence of the volcanoes has left its mark in Cumberland in a striking manner, and in many different ways, the nature of which will be considered after the following preliminary explanation.

(c) There is reason to believe that within the lower part of the core of a volcano the rocks have been reduced to a pasty or semifluid condition by the uprise of those superheated alkaline waters, which have already been mentioned as forming one of the principal factors in all volcanic eruptions. It is within this plutonic region, which may be situated several miles below the summit of the volcano, that such rocks as granites and the rocks allied thereto are generated. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the greater part of all such plutonic masses have originated deep within the earth’s crust at the root of a volcano. In other words, areas of granitic rocks generally mark the site of former volcanoes. The zone within which these rocks are generated may conveniently be re- ferred to as the ‘ granitic zone.’

Furthermore, the same superheated alkaline waters, whose uprise is so essentially connected with volcanic action, permeate the sedimentary and other rocks contiguous to the lower part of a volcano, and there pro- duce very important changes by giving rise to what is termed contact metamorphism. This zone may be referred to as the ‘zone of thermo- metamorphism.’

If the reader will bear these general principles in mind it will enable him to understand the nature and origin of some important

1 Goodchild, ‘Desert Conditions in Britain,’ Trans. Geol. Soc. Edin., vii. pp. 203-222

(1896-97). I 17 c

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

changes which affected the rocks of Cumberland at this period, and which have left vestiges at many places, both within the county and around it. These will be stated in historical order, even though doing so involves a reference to events that took place prior to the period under notice.

(2) During the later history of the Cumberland volcanoes, the gran- itic zones beneath the focus of each gradually ate their way upwards through the sedimentary rocks and into the material of the volcano itself; so that the lavas, tuffs, and intrusive masses of the inner parts of some of the volcanoes were gradually replaced by, or perhaps transformed into, material which afterwards consolidated as granitic masses. Furthermore, with the enlargement of the granitic zones, the zones of thermo-meta- morphism also extended farther and farther into the overlying rocks, so that the lately formed volcanic rocks themselves were in some few cases reduced to a softened state, and kept in that condition long enough to permit of a certain amount of rearrangement of their constituents. As the temperature of the whole mass gradually fell, this process finally led to the crystallization of some of these rearranged materials. The reader who wishes to understand the geology of the country around Keswick, Ambleside, Buttermere, etc., should try to comprehend this, for a large proportion of what was at one time loose fragmentary tuff has been altered by these changes into rock which, in many cases, can only be distin- guished from lava by patient investigation in the field, supplemented by the careful study of thin sections of the rock under the microscope. The rocks in question were referred to by the Geological Survey officers who mapped the ground (and who, therefore, had an intimate knowledge of the true relations of these rocks) as ‘ altered ashes.’ The late Mr. Clifton Ward very rightly laid great stress upon this point, the importance of which in the present connection, can hardly be overestimated. It was not only the tuffs which were altered in this way, but the lavas them- selves also underwent a certain amount of change by the same process ; while the sedimentary rocks were first softened and subsequently re- crystallized to such an extent that they are hardly any longer recognizable as sediments. A fine series of these altered rocks was placed by Mr. Ward in the Keswick Museum, the Museum of Practical Geology in London, and in the Carlisle Museum, and they were admirably described by him in the Geological Survey Memoir on the ‘ Northern Part of the English Lake District.’

(e) Complicated alterations of also the earlier-formed volcanic rocks later originated as a further consequence of the growth of the vol- cano and the progressive uprise of the granitic zone at its base. The lava streams, beds of tuff, dykes and sills, of which the volcano was built, gradually passed through every stage of conversion into crystalline masses, and became more and more interlaced with, and traversed b rocks which had been crystalline from their first stage of consolidation, until these inner zones of the old volcano assumed the structure of a

complex mass, whose details seem at first sight to offer endless difficulties to the geologist.

18

GEOLOGY

Carrock Fell is a striking example of the feature referred to. It was described at some length by the late Mr. Ward, and has since formed the subject of an important memoir by Messrs. Marr and Harker. Another area of the same general nature occurs around the foot of Thirlmere.’

There are several other areas in the Lake district which are of the complicated nature here referred to, and as most of these give rise to striking scenery, the subject can hardly be passed over without some kind of reference, even though that reference involves certain technic- alities.

There is another set of phenomena which originated soon after the close of the Silurian Period, and which gives rise to effects of considerable commercial importance, as well as being largely concerned in the evolution of the scenery. This is the phenomenon known as cLEAVAGE. Under its influence rocks of various kinds split with more or less facility in parallel directions, which bear no necessary relation to any of the original planes of structure. All true slates split solely under the influence of this structure. The exact origin of slaty cleavage has not yet been quite satisfactorily explained; but it will suffice for the purpose at present in view to state that it is certainly due to a slight rearrangement of the particles composing the rock affected, which has been brought about by intense lateral pressure exerted under certain special conditions at present imperfectly understood. ‘The true nature of cleavage does not strike one so much in connection with the slates of Wales as it does with those of the Lake district, because in this latter case the bands which mark the original bedding of the rock are much more prominently displayed, and because slate in one form or another is largely quarried and is so extensively used, in Cumberland especially, for building purposes. It may be remarked here that the slates of the Lake district do not quite accord with the definition laid down in text-books, inasmuch as most of them consist of rocks of vol- canic origin ; and these are not, and never were, rocks of argillaceous composition, to which, judging by the statements copied into text-books, cleavage is supposed to be confined.

In whatever way slaty cleavage may have originated, the date when the structure was impressed upon the rocks is clearly one shortly after the close of the Silurian Period. It affects the rocks in different degrees, in accordance with their composition. Tuffs and fine-grained rocks of argillaceous composition cleave to the highest degree of perfection.

1 The explanation generally given of the plutonic phenomena referred to in the last paragraph is that they are due to the effects of heat given off by incandescent molten rock, which has been bodily and violently transferred from a lower level to a higher from some zone of fusion within the earth’s crust. It will be seen that the writer of this article regards them primarily as manifestations of the effects of superheated alkaline waters, which have effected a gradual transformation of rocks im situ, in the case of metamorphic rock, and an equally gradual replacement in the case of the so-called ‘igneous’ rock. - According to this view, therefore, all eruptive rocks represent the products of consolidation from aqueous solutions ; and water, not dry heat, is the chief agent concerned.

19

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

Next to these in this respect come argillaceous limestones, as, for example, some of the beds of Coniston Limestone. Lavas in Cum- berland show only faint traces of cleavage, while grits and greywackes hardly show any cleavage at all. It may be remarked that in North Wales Pre-Carboniferous rocks of all kinds are cleaved more or less ; while in Scotland the same rocks, even where most intensely com- pressed and contorted, rarely show any trace of cleavage. In Ireland cleavage affects rocks of Carboniferous age, asin the case of the Carboni- ferous Slate near Cork. Cleavage affects these rocks in Cumberland to a decreasing extent as we go northward, and it ceases to produce any marked effect north of an east and west line through Cross Fell. It is hardly discernible in the northern part of the Caldbeck Fells, where, by the way, true bedding has been mistaken for cleavage.

(g) After this digression we are in a better position to understand the events which took place in Cumberland in Devonian times. The period of upheaval crumpling and cleavage of the strata, added to that of their subsequent waste and removal by surface agencies, which fol- lowed the Silurian Period, must have been one of prolonged duration, if we may judge by the amount of disturbance and the enormous thickness of rock removed. It seems probable that mountains of considerable elevation and consisting of these Silurian rocks had arisen, and that it was in connection with these upheavals that the later set of volcanoes had arisen to which previous reference has been made. There is good reason to believe that a considerable mass of these Devonian volcanic rocks accumulated here, and that they formerly extended, with a marked un- conformity, over all the Lake district rocks, and have been subsequently removed by denudation. But although the volcanic rocks themselves have disappeared, the volcanoes have left their mark in other ways, for there is reason to believe that several of the granite masses, such as those of Shap, Skiddaw, and Eskdale, not to mention smaller areas less well known, mark the site of former volcanoes belonging to the period under consideration. The granites of Cumberland are therefore of two ages, Ordovician and Devonian.

In connection with these Devonian volcanoes there was a repetition of the phenomena already noticed under the Ordovician Period. Con- tact alteration took place around the granite areas, and the more ancient lavas and tuffs, more or less altered by changes due to the long-continued circulation of underground waters, underwent considerable change in lithological character. It is important to remember in studying this set of facts that the contact-alteration of rocks which have lost part of their alkalies and have suffered chemical change in other ways, must necessarily give rise to a kind of rock quite different from what resulted from contact-alteration before they were so changed. The effects have been very remarkable in some cases, and were described many years ago by Mr. Ward, and more recently, by the light of much fuller knowledge, by Mr. Harker in the case of the tuffs, etc., around the Shap

granite. 20

GEOLOGY

The decomposition products of the lava have been reconstituted, and have given rise to Epidote (after Saponite), Garnets, Biotite, Hornblende, Felspar and other minerals ; while the limestones, where so acted upon, have passed into crystalline marbles, like those of the counties of Perth, Aberdeen and Inverness, and now yield Idocrase and other ordinary lime silicates which occur in impure limestones in general when these are affected by prolonged contact metamorphism.

Another result of the same cause has been the welding of the cleav- age planes, which has taken place in zones of variable width around the intrusive masses, by which the slates have been recompacted.

(4) Life of the Devonian Period.—In Cumberland not a single trace of organic remains of any kind occurs in connection with the rocks of this period, because they were mostly of desert origin, and barren of life. It may, however, be well to make reference to the fact that a great abundance and variety of animal life is known to have existed in the seas of the same period. The organic remains found elsewhere in the deposits formed in the old inland lakes of this time inform us of a great advance in the evolution of vertebrate life, for we find in these rocks a considerable variety of fishes whose zoological grades extend from some of the simplest to some as highly organized as any yet living in the waters of the present day. Furthermore, vegetation had advanced to an equal extent.

(7) Continental conditions accompanied by an arid climate, with the land undergoing slow upheaval, continued for a very long time after the decline of the volcanic episode. We know by the important series of changes which elsewhere took place in both the organic and the inorganic world that this period must have been one of enormous length. In Cumberland there exist only very fragmentary records of these changes, because the period succeeding that which has just been noticed was one during which a vast thickness of the older strata, including almost every trace of the volcanic cones, was slowly and gradually swept away. There is some reason for believing that at the period next to be considered the area now occupied by Cumberland and Westmorland consisted of a low- land tract which lay at the foot of a great mountain region nearly co- incident with the area occupied at present by the southern uplands of Scotland and the Cheviots. From this area the torrents which were formed during the irregular periods when rain fell, by degrees transported vast quantities of shingle, gravel and sand from the mountain area lying to the north-west, and gradually spread these wasted fragments of the old northern land over a large part of the area under consideration. This fact is rendered quite evident by an examination of the materials of the conglomerates of the Upper Old Red Sandstone in Cumberland. At Melmerby these contain abundant fragments of the Cheviot andesites, together with some rocks from the southern uplands of Scotland ; while the same conglomerates at the foot of Ullswater, which form the rounded hills, Easter and Wester Mell Fells, yield abundant representa-

tives of the Silurian and Ordovician greywackes of the south of Scot- 2I

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

land. As we trace these Upper Old Red conglomerates towards Shap, we find the same evidence continued, with the addition that, near Shap, fragments of the Shap Granite itself set in, and may be readily gathered from these rocks.

The full significance of the fact just mentioned may be realized when it is remembered that such a rock as the Shap Granite could have been found only at a great depth below the surface, which depth may well be stated as several miles. In order, therefore, that a rock found at such a depth should make its appearance at the surface, there must be an upheaval equal to at least that extent, and the overlying thickness of rock must have been totally removed. This waste usually takes place pari passé with the upheaval. At the present day the rate of the removal of similar rock can hardly exceed one foot in about 4,000 years, and may be at as slow a rate as one in 6,000. But, if we set the rate at the time under consideration at one foot in three thousand years, it will be evident that the time required must extend to a great many millions of years. And yet all this took place after the period when the Old Red Sand- stone volcanoes had ceased to erupt, and prior to the commencement of the deposition of the Upper Old Red! As an additional fact of the same nature it may be mentioned that the aggregate thickness of the strata across whose edges in the Lake district the Upper Old Red un- conformably lies exceeds five miles. That is to say, before the Upper Old Red was laid down, an aggregate thickness of five miles of rock, mostly of a very durable nature, had been slowly and gradually swept away from this area.

(7) The Life of the Upper Old Red Sandstone——The rock under notice having been formed under desert conditions, might be expected to be, as it actually is, without traces of life. Evidence obtained else- where, however, shows that under favourable conditions marine life flourished. In the rivers, and perhaps also in the inland lakes, there still remained some of the wonderful fishes which characterized the Cale- donian Old Red Sandstone, but nearly all of them are of different species —the long lapse of time since the commencement of the older period, added to the equally long time represented by the great unconformity, having sufficed for the gradual evolution of many new forms and the consequent extinction of those of the older types. _

(4) A very long period of time is implied by the vast unconformity which followed the Silurian Period and preceded the formation of the rocks of Devonian age. To that there must be added the time required for the formation of the Old Red Sandstone itself. If, instead of using these data in computing the time required, we base this estimate upon | the rate of formation of the marine limestones formed elsewhere during the period under consideration (assuming that rate to be one foot in 25,000 years), we arrive at a total of 250,000,000 years for the period between the close of the Silurian Period and the commencement of Car- boniferous times.

V. CargonireRous Psrtop.—(2) With the deposition of the 22

GEOLOGY

Upper Old Red Sandstone commenced an important change in the order of things. From being part of a great continental upland, far from the sea, with a small and irregular rainfall, and with but scanty traces of life, it gradually passed to conditions in all essential respects almost the very opposite. The change was brought about, first, by a cessation of the repeated upheavals of the land, which had previously gone on so long a time, and then to an equally slow and gradual movement in the opposite direction. As the land quietly subsided the sea, which was distant at the outset, gradually advanced nearer and nearer. With closer proximity to the sea, the rainfall became more regular, and the former extremes of temperature were gradually miti- gated. Finally, the climate passed from one of a continental type to the type usually found under insular conditions. With the advent of condi- tions more favourable to life, a varied and abundant vegetation began to spring up, and animal life on the land, so scarce during the former period, now immigrated in great force ; and its growth advanced by leaps and bounds. The transition phases in climate are marked by a series of deposits which English geologists term the Lower Limestone Shale, which in Ireland form part of the Carboniferous Slate, and which the geologists of Scotland know as the Ballagan Beds. The general character of these rocks is very uniform, wherever they occur throughout the kingdom. They are very imperfectly developed on the margin of the Lake district near Penruddock, but are much better seen at several places in Westmorland, notably at Shap Summit. They also occur in the north-east of the county, and are traceable at Melmerby. In general terms they may be said to consist of old beds of clay, silt and sand, which were deposited mainly in sea water, in shallow lagoons and in deltas, at a time when the subsidence of the land first gave admittance to the sea, and just when the climate was changing from the arid condi- tion of Old Red times to the humid climate that succeeded, or from a continental climate to one that was insular.

The general behaviour of these old sediments where they are studied over a large area, shows that their materials have been trans- ported in the main in a south-easterly direction. We may conclude from that fact that the old land from whose waste they were derived lay somewhere to the north-west.

The deposition of the Upper Old Red Sandstone had not by any means quite levelled up all the inequalities of the surface. One of the larger ridges thus left can easily be made out still. It ranged in a nearly east and west direction through Cumberland, passing through Whitehaven, the south side of Ullswater, Penrith, below Cross Fell, past the High Force in Teesdale, beyond which point the evidence fails.

(4) After a time, as the land slowly sank, the sea advanced farther and farther northward, and Cumberland subsided at a sufficiently rapid rate to allow of the extension of fairly deep and quite clear sea water over the greater part of the area. After that stage had been reached

23

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

there set in a very long period during which the principal materials laid down upon the sea bottom were beds of limestone, all of them more or less of the nature of the various calcareous oozes which are in process of formation in the deeper recesses of the ocean at the present day. There is no proof of the existence of anything at all resembling coral reefs ; although, as is well known, isolated groups of corals, all belonging to an extinct order, locally occurred in abundance. ‘The general nature of the fossils found in these limestones suggests the presence of equable and moderately warm surface currents, which are usually favourable to the development of animal and vegetable organisms.

With the evidence we now possess it is not difficult to fill in a few details regarding the physical geography of the Cumberland area at this time. To begin with a feature about which a widespread misapprehen- sion exists: There is not a particle of evidence to show that the present Lake district represents an old island in the seas of the period under notice. There was, it is true, the easterly ridge already referred to ; but the subsidence of the sea bottom carried this below water at an early stage, and there is not a single fact that would indicate an area of even shallow water, let alone an island, which coincides with any part of the present Lake district. It will be shown presently that the Lake district as an upland area did not come into existence until Tertiary times. We have clear evidence of the delta of a great river, which represents the materials brought south-eastward from a land area somewhere to the north-west. As the land subsided the seaward edge of the delta receded in the direction of the continent. A study of the present distribution of the terrigenous deposits of this period (that is to say, the gravels, sands, and muds derived from the land, as dis- tinguished from the limestones) shows that the axis of the delta lay far to the east of the area under notice. As a consequence we find the proportional thickness of the deposits from clear and quiet water to that of those deposits which have been mechanically transported from the land steadily increasing as we advance from east to west. This is true of the rocks belonging to the period under notice, not only in Cumberland, but also in most other parts of the kingdom as well.

To gain a clear conception of the sequence of events to which the Lower Carboniferous Rocks of Cumberland are due, the reader should endeavour to realize the effect of periodic subsidences of level alternating with periods when the land was stationary, or even subject to occasional oscillations of level. With a subsidence the clear water of the sea advances over an area where prior to that subsidence there stood the estuary lagoons and shallow seas of a delta, the waters of which were more or less turbid and laden with the materials wasted from the old land. While the land remained stationary the delta gradually pushed seaward and covered the deposits found in clear water with the sediments derived from the land. With oscillations of level, in which the net result of the movement is one of subsidence, alternations of deposits proper to clear water alternate with the clay, sand and gravel,

24

GEOLOGY

and other terrigenous deposits from the land. If, further, this con- ception can be still more extended by realizing that the various deposits laid down under any given set of conditions formed a series of crescents one within another, in which the inner crescents are made of coarse materials transported from the land, and the outer ones of organico- chemical deposits laid down in the clear water of the sea, the reader may obtain a good generalized view of the sequence of events that arose during Carboniferous times in Cumberland.

It has already been stated that, while purely marine conditions pre- vailed in Cumberland and in the areas to the south-east, those not farther off than the south of Scotland were more or less of an estuarine nature. Furthermore, no traces of any kind of volcanic action occur in these rocks in Cumberland, although there is abundant and perfectly clear evidence of the existence of numerous small volcanoes in the northern area referred to. To put this statement into a more definite form : While a deep-sea limestone was in process of formation, say at Greystoke, deposits of fine mud were being laid down in the Bewcastle area, and volcanoes were in full activity in Dumfries and Roxburgh. Further north still, at the same period, there was land, upon which flourished a luxuriant vegetation, whose remains being drifted seaward, and becoming entombed in the terrigenous sediments, gave rise to much carbonaceous matter, which in extreme cases took the form of seams of oil-shale and beds of coal. Itis the presence in deposits of the same age as that of the limestones of Greystoke Park of an abundance of these carbonaceous materials that has given rise to the name Carboniferous Limestone, which is applied to the rocks now under consideration. Around the head waters of the River Eden the aggregate thickness of this subdivision attains to fully 3,500 feet; but as these rocks are traced towards the Solway, or in other words as they are traced from an area where they were found under deep-water conditions towards the part where the conditions on the whole were shallower, the limestones gradually be- come thinner, and are more and more divided by beds of shale and sandstone, until in the northern part of the county the aggregate thick- ness of the beds of limestone is barely one-tenth as much near the mouth of the Eden as it is near its source.

(c) The Carboniferous Limestone Series is locally divisible into a lower subdivision, to which the term Mountain Limestone is usually restricted, and an upper, the Yoredale Rocks. These two subdivisions, bracketed with the Lower Limestone Shales, form the Lower Carboni- ferous Rocks of geologists. In Cumberland the Carboniferous Limestone Series may be said to present three types. Of these we may take as one type that found in south-east Cumberland, which is much the same as that occurring throughout most of Westmorland and north - west Yorkshire. In its fullest development this consists of an almost undivided mass of pure grey marine limestone, locally exceeding 2,000 feet in thickness. Above this come the Yoredale Rocks, which consist essentially of a great mass of shale with interbedded sandstones and flag-

25

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

stones, and with a few relatively thin beds of marine limestone, which are wonderfully persistent in character over a very large area. The total thickness of this subdivision ranges from 1,500 to 2,000 feet. These Yoredale Rocks are of great commercial importance in Cum- berland, as being the chief repository of much of the hematite and nearly all the lead ores. Their details are therefore given more fully on pp. 27, 28.

The second type of Lower Carboniferous Rocks is found in north Cumberland, and is like that which characterizes these rocks through- out Northumberland, and indeed most of southern Scotland as well. In this type (which, of course, graduates into each of the others) the Mountain Limestone consists essentially of a thick pile of sandstones, with subordinate shales, and with a few thin and impure beds of lime- stone, which represent the landward edge of the thick pile of wedges of limestone found on the same horizon to the south-east. Putting this statement in another form, we may say that the thick mass of limestone found at the head of Edenside gradually gives place, bed by bed, to sandstones and shales as the rocks trend from south to north, the change affecting the limestones from below upwards, so that the lowest changes farthest south and the upper retains its character farthest north. In the north Cumberland type the Yoredale Rocks, on the other hand, re- tain their general character with very little change. These limestones, however, also show a tendency to split up and to pass into sandstones and shales, the lowest limestones changing first as they are traced from south to north, as in the case of the older group.

The third type is that occurring in west Cumberland. This de- velopment of the Lower Carboniferous Rocks is unlike the others in some important respects. The essential difference is due to the fact that the chief axis of the delta during Lower Carboniferous times lay far to the east of Cumberland. Asa result of these conditions more sand and terrigenous materials of other kinds were deposited on the east side of Cumberland than over the area where the Lake district is now, where the water remained deeper and clearer. Hence the chief deposit laid down was thalassic and consisted mainly of beds of lime- stone. These, traced from east to west, gradually become thinner, the beds thinning away from below upwards, as in the other cases noted, but with this difference, that, in the present case, they are not replaced by sandstones or shales. The changes just described affect all the Moun- tain Limestone and the Yoredale Rocks as well. The result is that bed after bed of limestone, from below upwards, thins away as we advance from Penrith in the direction of Whitehaven, until nearly the whole of the Mountain Limestones have coalesced into one or two thin beds. ‘The sandstones and shales of the Yoredale Rocks have likewise thinned in the same manner, so that at their westernmost exposure the limestones have nearly all come together, and now form one almost undivided mass. The so-called Mountain Limestone of west Cumber-

land is thus of Yoredale age—the underlying beds having thinned away 26

GEOLOGY

entirely. It may not be out of place to mention here that the present writer determined this point in the early ‘seventies,’ and officially re- ported the foregoing conclusion to the Director of the Geological Survey in May, 1874.

As the Yoredale Rocks are of considerable commercial importance, some details regarding them are given here, as follows :—

The highest beds are stated first ; and the local names, as employed in Alston Moor and elsewhere, are given in square brackets :—

YoREDALE Rocks (1) Upper Section :—

Thickness about 500 feet, strata very persistent. The sandstones and shales are not subject to the westerly thinning that affects rocks of this kind which belong to the Lower Section :—

Sandstones and shales, with an important and very persistent coal seam [The Tanhill Seam] which ranges up to 4 feet in thick- ness.

Shales with [The Fell Top] Limestones.

Shale.

Limestone [The Crag Limestone of Alston = the Crow Limestone and Chert of Yorkshire].

Sandstone (with two or more coals, locally worked) [The Fire- stone, Ten Fadom Grit].

Shale.

Limestone [The Little Limestone = the Red Beds Limestone and Chert].

Coarse grits [The Coal Sills] with a very constant seam of coal [The Tindal Fell Seam] which ranges to 4 feet 6 inches, and is locally accompanied by other seams. These represent the Edge Coals of the Lothians (vide Gunn, Trans. Geol. Soc. Edin. vii. 367), the Lickar Coals of Northumberland, and shales and cherts.

The foregoing strata represent the lower part of the Whitehaven

Coal Measures.

(2) Lower Section :—

Total thickness ranging from 500 feet on the west of Cumberland, to 1,200 on the east :—

Limestone [The Main, Twelve Fadom, Dryburn, or Great Lime- stone].

Coal, sandstone, shale.

[The Limestone Post = The Upper Undersett Limestone of north- west Yorkshire. |

Coarse Grit [The Quarry Hazel of Alston].

Shales, thinning westward.

Siliceous limestone (.e. containing organic silica, and not sand) [The Four Fadom, Low Dean, or Lower Undersett Limestone].

27

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

Sandstones and shales, thinning westward.

[The Three Yards, or Acre] Limestone, persistent.

Sandstones and shales, thinning westward [Six Fadom Hazel].

[The Five Yards, or Eelwell] Limestone, persistent.

Sandstone and shales, thinning westward.

[The Scar, the Middle or Fourth Sett Limestone], persistent.

The foregoing strata probably represent what has been called the ‘Carboniferous Limestone’ of Scotland.

Sandstones, persistent coal and shales, thinning westward.

Two thin, but very persistent, limestones [The Cockle-Shell Lime-

stone, and Post Limestone].

Sandstones and shales, thinning westward [Tyne Bottom Plate].

[The Tyne Bottom, Simonstone, or Fifth Sett, Limestone], gener- ally persistent, but somewhat thinner in north Cumberland.

Sandstones, shales, and some thin limestones, the two former thin- ning westward.

[The Hardra, Jew, Oxford, or Sixth Sett, Limestone], generally per- sistent, but becoming thinner towards the north-east.

Sandstones and shales, thinning westward of Cumberland, and thick- ening to the north-east.

[Top of the Mountain Limestone], whose calcareous members have been already referred to as thinning steadily toward the north- west, and as being replaced by the Fell Sandstones and the lower half of the Oil Shales of the so-called ‘ Calciferous Sandstone Series,’ as they trend towards the north and the north-east.

So far as the Lower Carboniferous Rocks are concerned, Cumberland

may be regarded as the area within which there set in changes of a most important character from both a theoretical and an economic point of view.

Hardly anywhere else in the kingdom can there be found types so diverse as the almost purely thalassic limestone series of West Cumber- land, the mixed estuarine, marine and volcanic types of the Borders, and the normal types of these rocks as developed in the south and south- east of the county. In comparing them as a whole with their chrono- logical equivalents in Scotland, the salient points of contrast are between shallow-water and volcanic types on the north, with dominantly deep- water and non-volcanic types on the south.

(¢@) At the close of the Lower Carboniferous times there appears to have been a very general cessation of deposit over a large area in the northern parts of Britain, including Scotland. It may have coincided with a temporary, but very general, upheaval of the sea bottom, and with more or less removal of the sediments already laid down. This episode appears to have lasted a considerable time.

Next followed a second period of slow subsidence and consequent deposition, during which the so-called Millstone Grit and the true Coal

Measures were laid down. Their history may be told in a few words ; 28

GEOLOGY

for, although they undoubtedly represent a vast interval of time, the physical conditions under which they were formed varied but little from first to last. The evidence seems to show that there was still a great continental area to the north-west, from which rivers continued, as in former times, to transport the spoils of the land towards the south-east. But at no time throughout a period which must have been one of enor- mous length, did the land ever subside to an extent sufficient to admit of the deep sea. Sand and mud, and occasional beds of fine gravel, were gradually transported seaward, chiefly at the bottom of the rivers ; depo- sition nearly all the time being regulated by the subsidence. During those periods when a greater depression took place, very little mud found its way seaward, except such as was for a time held in suspension in the water, and which thereafter gently subsided to the bottom, usually in thin layers. In the deeper-water phases almost the only deposit laid down consisted of the finer remains of land vegetation, which, after drifting seawards, eventually became water-logged and quietly sank to the sea floor, there to form the materials out of which in time the chemical action set up by the sulphate of lime in the sea water gave rise to the hydrocarbon compounds which eventually consolidated as coal.

Pretty pictures, relating to Carboniferous times in Cumberland, have often been drawn, in which the primeval forests, from whose remains coal has been formed, have been represented as flourishing on old hills, whose remains are now supposed to be left in the Lake district. One would fain believe that these works of art were founded upon well-observed facts; but, unfortunately, that is not the case. Woodlands there were, it is true, and we can easily con- ceive what both their broader features and their minor details must have been like; but both the growing trees and the land upon which they are supposed to have arisen had no place anywhere near Cumberland.

A small patch of true Coal Measures, let down by a powerful fault, occurs in the upper part of the basin of the Eden at Argill, near Stain- moor. Small as the outlier is, it suffices to show that Coal Measures once extended over a much larger area, and were more fully developed, than had been supposed previous to the discovery of this outlier by the present writer in 1872. This outlier probably represents the only patch of true Coal Measures occurring anywhere in Britain to the north of Lancashire.

Coal seams, throughout the whole of the Carboniferous Rocks, set in one after another from above downwards, as the rocks are followed from south to north, and thick coals of good quality occur on various plat- forms in different parts. It is usual, and is, perhaps, advisable also, to designate any strata that yield coals of economic value ‘ Coal Measures.’ Both the lowest beds of the Upper Carboniferous Rocks and the upper beds of the Lower Carboniferous yield valuable coal seams in Cumber- land, It would prevent much confusion if this well-known fact were

29

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

expressed by speaking of these productive beds as ‘ Coal Measures,’ with some qualification connected with the locality where they occur. Thus we may speak of the Whitehaven Coal Measures, even though the beds in question may prove to be (as the present writer has long believed) of the same age as the Upper Yoredales and the Millstone Grit. In like manner we may speak of the Brampton Coal Measures, or the Newcastle Coal Measures, even though it may prove, as just stated, that no rem- nants of the true Coal Measures occur anywhere in Britain to the north of the tiny remnant before referred to as occurring in the basin of the Eden.

(e) Organic Remains from Carboniferous Rocks.—Just as the animals and plants of the Devonian Period mark a stage of organic evolution greatly in advance of that presented by Silurian life, so does the life of the Carboniferous Period, on the whole, surpass the Devonian. Probably the waters of the Carboniferous seas in the Cumberland area had a moderately high maximum temperature, and a minimum temperature but little below the mean. These are amongst the conditions most favourable for the development of animal life in the sea ; and they are almost equally favourable for the growth of vegetation on the land. The chief organic advance was made by the Vertebrata, as some of the higher grades of fishes (probably the Dipnoi, the ancient representatives of the modern Ceratodus) gradually took to an amphibious mode of life, which in time led to the evolution of the Amphibia, from which parent stock first the Anomodontia, and then the true Reptiles and the Birds, as well as the Mammalia, eventually arose.

It is very interesting to note that several air-breathing Invertebrates, of forms not very distantly removed from those now living, had already come into existence in Carboniferous times. The Scorpions and the Galley Worms are especially noteworthy in this respect.

As for the vegetation, we have abundant evidence of what that was like, even though the remains are those of plants grown at a distance. No plants of grade quite as high as the true Conifers had yet arisen. The bulk of the forest growth consisted of gigantic plants of much lower grade than the firs, a large number of which were allied to the Club Mosses (especially to Se/aginella). With these were others, distantly allied to the modern Equisetums. It is from the spores, and from the macerated leaves and vegetable tissues of these in general, that our coal seams have arisen.

(7) A computation of the time required for the formation of the Lower Carboniferous Rocks, estimated chiefly on the assumed rate of one foot in 25,000 years for the marine limestones, gives 62,000,000 years. To this has to be added the time required for the formation of the coal seams and the other rocks of Upper Carboniferous age, occur- ring in other parts of Britain, which is here set at 31,800,000 years. This gives a total of 93,800,000 years as the time required for the formation of the whole of the Carboniferous Rocks.

30

GEOLOGY

NEOZOIC PERIOD

Post-Piiocene Deposits: Peat, Alluvium, Raised Beaches, and the various deposits of Glacial origin. Unconformity.

Dykes and Mineral Veins of Tertiary age. Unconformity.

‘TERTIARY CRETACEOUs rocks represented by scattered Chalk flints, etc. Great Unconformity. Lias, Ruaztic Rocks. New Rep Rocks: B. Keuper Marl. St. Bees Sandstone. Bunter Marl. A. Magnesian Limestone and Plant Beds. Penrith Sandstone and the Brockrams. Great Unconformity.

VI. Tue New Rep Serizes.—(a) After the protracted period of subsidence and deposition, during which the Carboniferous Rocks were formed—a period which may well have extended over very many millions of years—the downward movement which prevailed during that period came to an end, and a movement in the opposite direction began. Just as in previous times the old Silurian sediments, after a protracted period of subsidence, were gradually crumpled and folded by earth creep, so that they were slowly squeezed up into mountain ranges and gradually wasted away ; so it was with the Carboniferous sediments at the period now under consideration. The evidence clearly points to the fact that part, at least, of the area which now forms the Lake district was one of the chief centres of upheavals at this early period. So, too, with part of the area of the southern uplands of Scotland. The old Carboniferous sediments, after being carried downward by subsidence miles below the sea level, and there gradually folded, were slowly upheaved, folded by lateral thrusts, and fractured and faulted as they arose. As the masses slowly and quietly emerged and were elevated into uplands, atmospheric waste favoured the removal of the rock material, just as it had done with the predecessors of these rocks on the same spot in times previous. And just as in former times the rate of upheaval in the earlier stages of movement kept slightly ahead of the rate of waste, so the newly-exposed land gradually increased in elevation, and Cumberland found itself farther and farther removed from the sea, and therefore from the main source of rain. Hence, after a long transition period, desert conditions again set in. The change of conditions was a very gradual one,'so that many wadies were gradually shaped by the streams before the period when the rainfall reached its minimum. In Jater times these old valleys, or wadies, were gradually filled up by the waste of the rocks of which their sides were formed. It may be repeated here that, under continental condi- tions, where the air generally contains a smaller percentage of aqueous vapour than usual, the sun’s heat exercises a much more powerful influ- ence by day, because the temperature of its rays near the earth has not been lowered by a passage through the moist aerial screen. In like

31

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

manner, the same envelope of aqueous vapour which acts as a sunshade during the day, acts equally as a blanket by night, by checking the radi- ation from the earth. Therefore, where there is but little aqueous vapour present in the air, the rocks exposed to the sun very soon become hot during the day, and cool down with equal rapidity during the night. Hence the difference between the daily maximum temperature and the nightly minimum is much greater in an arid than in a humid district. As a consequence of a great diurnal range of temperature, rocks expand greatly during the heat of the day, and contract to an equal extent during the cold of the night. Hence they crack under these conditions and fly to splinters in a manner and to an extent both very different from what we are accustomed to meet with in more humid climates. Moreover, in an arid region wind comes into action to a much greater extent than water, from which cause the character of the rock fragments is different in many important respects from those found in sedimentary rocks of the ordinary type.

(4) The history of the events that ensued is much as follows : First there set in continental conditions, with the land rising locally at a faster rate than it was wasted by denudation. In the earlier part of the period there was a moderate rainfall, so that river-courses were shaped on the flanks of the uplands much as they are shaped here now. With a further uprise of the land, and a consequent recession of the sea margin to a still greater distance, the average quantity of aqueous vapour in the atmosphere steadily decreased, and the rainfall therefore became very ir- regular. The total quantity per annum must have been small in amount, and perhaps rarely exceeding ten inches, and most even of that was pre- cipitated in connection with the torrential rain accompanying thunder- storms. The waste of the rocks took place chiefly through the strains set up by the rapid expansions and contractions arising from the great diurnal range of temperature. In other words, the rocks were splintered, shattered, and broken up by mechanical causes instead of being, as they are here now, mainly decomposed by chemical means. As the volume of the streams diminished with the rainfall, so that their channels remained dry except during heavy rain, there was little or none of that rounding which characterizes river gravel in general. Each rock fragment, as it split up into smaller and smaller pieces, remained angular from first almost to last, and most of the material detached from the rocks at the sides of the valleys remained as screes until a violent flood shifted them in great masses to the low ground. As the fragments split up the finer chips were driven by the wind against each other, or used in the natural sand blasts by which rock erosion was partly accomplished, until the chips were reduced to the finest dust. In this state they served to load the atmosphere with fine particles, which occasionally gathered into clouds and were then blown far and wide as desert dust. ‘The more durable rock materials, chiefly quartz, which long resisted reduction in size, were blown to and fro by the wind so that the grains became worn by attrition against each other and eventually assumed that rounded form

32

GEOLOGY

which only the grains of desert sand ever take, and which at once serves to distinguish grains of sand so formed from similar grains worn by moving waters. The prolonged action of the wind acting upon large bodies of sand served eventually to pile the sand into great dunes, whose long axes in Cumberland ran north and south (as if their form were determined by the earth’s rotation) and whose steeper sides faced to the west. It is these old desert sand-dunes which now form the Penrith Sandstone, to be referred to in more detail presently.

(c) With an irregular rainfall, small in total amount, there could be but little vegetation, and what little there was must have consisted of those species which had gradually adapted themselves to the arid condi- tions. Their nature is unknown, for no traces of them have been met with in the old sand-dunes ; but all analogy would seem to point to their being hard, thick-leaved and scrubby, with long roots adapted for exten- sion far down into what little damp soil they found. Probably many of them were armed with thorns, to enable them to hold their own against the few animals who were driven to use them as food.

Animal life is always directly or indirectly dependent upon vegeta- tion, so that desert conditions have sometimes been defined as those which are unsuitable for carnivorous animals. Hence, whatever may have been the case in those parts of the world where humid conditions obtained, we may take it for granted that the only terrestrial forms of vertebrate life were those of animals whose structure enabled them to stand long droughts, and to travel easily from one part of the desert to the other where there happened to be suitable feeding-ground for the time being. So far as we can form an opinion from the only vestiges that are left, which are almost exclusively spoors of one kind or another, the animals in question were chiefly reptiles. If we may judge by the variety of these footprints, the animals must have been very diverse in form and size. Some appear to have been squat and thick, with perhaps the form of tor- toises. Others were more slender, and may well have been crocodilian in form. Others, again—and these probably represented some of the most advanced forms—were reptiles of kangaroo-like shape, with long and stiff tails, and with the hind limbs bigger than the fore, from which we may conclude that they occasionally progressed by the hind limbs alone. The zoological grade of some of these appears to have been intermediate be- tween some low vertebrate form with affinities not far removed from the Amphibia, and another belonging to the ancestral stock of the Mammalia, of a structural type not far removed from that of the Echidna and the duck mole of Australia of to-day. Many of the Reptiles of this period belong to the Anomodontia, whose structural characters place them in the systematic position referred to. These Reptiles are regarded as modi- fications derived from an Amphibian stock, which, in the course of long ages, and as a consequence of a gradual change in physical conditions, became adapted to a life exclusively upon land. Of mammals and birds there is no trace, and there is reason to believe that they had not yet come into existence.

I 33 B

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

It should be again mentioned here that the land surface upon which the old screes and desert sands were laid down was very irregular. One of the chief depressions lay between where Appleby and Armathwaite are now—though the reader must guard himself against supposing that the depression referred to bore the slightest relation to the inequalities of the present surface. It was on the eastern slopes of this hollow that the chief deposit of the old screes took place. It is this which now forms the Brockrams of Edenside and Whitehaven. In the deeper part of the hollow little else than wind-blown sands were swept, and it is from these that, as already mentioned, the Penrith Sandstone has been formed. The depression must have exceeded 1,200 feet in depth.

(7) Some time after this hollow had been nearly filled up by the old screes and desert sands, one of the great terrestrial undulations to which the elevations and depressions of the land are due gradually reached the site of Cumberland. The sea gradually approached, the climate ameliorated, rain fell regularly, and vegetation of a different kind, chiefly allied to the Cycads and some primitive types of Conifers, began to spring up. Under these conditions the character of the strata that were deposited changed by slow degrees, and sandstones and clays of almost normal character were laid down. It is these which form the well-known Plant Beds, which, although best developed near Appleby, are also found within the Cumberland boundary (Desert Conditions, p. 218). (e) As the wave of depression slowly passed over the land, the sea once more gained admittance. It was probably never very deep here under these conditions, but to the east its depth was greater, and a thick mass of limestone, which was originally not very different in its character from the Mountain Limestone, was gradually formed. The fossils it contains inform us that the descendants of the Invertebrate animals which peopled the Carboniferous seas had not changed very much from the form of their ancestors. Some had died out, and some new forms had come in from other areas ; but as most of them consist of lowly forms of life, which are least prone to change, the assemblage as a whole reminds one very much of what we meet with in the limestone which preceded it. This later limestone is called the Magnesian Lime- stone. In the upper part of the basin of the Eden it is about thirty feet thick, but that thickness lessens as we trace it north-westward, and in many places in Cumberland it may never have been deposited at all. It is well seen on the shore south of Whitehaven, where it yields fossils which tell us plainly of its marine origin.

North Cumberland was apparently not submerged at this period, so that it is more than likely that some of the strange uncouth reptilians may have wandered there on the seaward margin of the old land, while marine animals were living in the sea only a few miles further south.

If we measure geological episodes by centuries, the period required for the formation of the Magnesian Limestone must have been one of great length, for there is little reason for regarding it as having been

34

GEOLOGY

formed at a much greater rate than any other limestone, and it is fully 550 feet in thickness on the eastern side of England.

Another phase of the terrestrial undulations finally reached Britain soon after the Magnesian Limestone had been formed. It would seem, judging by the evidence, that this undulation at first took the form of a local upheaval, sufficient in amount to elevate the lately-formed rocks into land; and it endured long enough to permit of a certain amount of waste and subsequent removal of the strata.

(f) Then came another phase of the undulation, the effect of which appears to have been to further elevate the land—perhaps only to a small vertical extent—over a large area of western Europe. The sea margin, in an easterly direction at any rate, had now receded several hundreds of miles ; and we find instead of marine conditions, one or more great and shallow inland lakes, the strata formed in which show unmistakable evidence of a return of the desert conditions which had characterized the period before that of the Magnesian Limestone. The Cumberland lake received its waters, in small quantities at a time, from the adjacent mountain areas, some of which may have coincided with part of the present southern uplands of Scotland. There were certainly hills near where Moffat is now, and so there were in Galloway. Criffel is known to have formed part of an upland area at this time, for we have the old screes and wady deposits of this period left, even yet, in many places in that part of Galloway. This lake must have been comparable, in many respects, to the Salt Lake of to-day, and to many others of the same type as those existing in central Asia. It certainly extended eastward from Cumberland, past Middlesborough; and the same lake, or others of the same kind contemporaneous with it, existed in North Germany, and even Russia. Westward, it extended at least as far as the north of Ireland. It had no outlet, and the whole of the water carried into it by the few streams by which it was fed was dissipated by evaporation. Hence the various substances carried in solution into the lakes gradually accumulated, and eventually separated out in the crystalline form, when their respective points of saturation were reached. Amongst these sub- stances were carbonate of iron (subsequently consolidating as hematite) carbonate of magnesia, sulphate of lime (which consolidated as gypsum) chloride of sodium (common salt) and other compounds of lesser im- portance in the present connection. It is to this episode that we owe our chief deposits of hematite and manganese ; and it is likewise to the infiltrations from the bottom of this old lake that we owe the widespread staining of Carboniferous and older rocks of Cumberland, and also the conversion of many of the limestones of that county into dolomite. The rocks formed under the conditions described are the Bunter Marl, which is about 250 feet thick on the average.

(g) After a long time the lake gradually became shallower, and instead of deposits of clay, beds of sand, alternating with beds of marl, were formed. This sand, afterwards consolidated into the sandstone which is known to us as the Corby Sandstone, St. Bees Sandstone, or

35

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

Bunter Sandstone, differs from the Penrith Sandstone not only in having been laid down almost entirely by water (instead of being deposited by the wind as desert sand-hills), but its general aspect is different in many respects, amongst which may be mentioned that it always contains flakes of mica, which is entirely absent from the Penrith Sandstone. It almost certainly overspread the whole of Cumberland and the greater part of Britain, as well as a large part of western Europe.

The few organic remains tell us of the former presence of reptiles more or less like those whose footprints occur in the Penrith Sandstone. Evidently these animals also were very varied in both form and size ; and it is quite clear from the footprints they have left that they often wandered over the half-dried mud or waded in the shallows of the old lakes, where somehow they managed to pick up a scanty subsistence. Probably they were attracted to the shallows by the chance of meeting with more succulent vegetation than was to be found on the drier parts of the land. Some of them may have been carnivorous, but as we have only the footprints to judge by we cannot be at all sure upon this point.

The St. Bees Sandstone, where fully developed, measures about 1,800 feet, but it is only in a few places that anything like the original thickness has survived the many subsequent periods of denudation.

(4) During the later part of the episode just noticed, the evidence seems to show that the old lakes were often completely dried up, and then the wind piled up sandhills, just as it did before. Soon after that it appears that there was again a somewhat abrupt lowering of the land, and a temporary return to more humid climatal conditions. Then followed a repetition of the conditions under which the Bunter Marl was formed, with the formation of rock-salt, gypsum, and dolomite, as before. It was under these conditions that the Keuper Marls were formed. The lower beds of these are well seen at Stanwix. They reach a thickness of a little over goo feet west of Carlisle, and between that and 1,000 feet appears to be their normal thickness all over Britain. It is in the Keuper Marl that most of the Midland rock-salt and gypsum occurs.

(‘) The rocks which were formed during the great continental phase above described are now usually referred to collectively as the New Red. The earlier-formed part may be conveniently classed as the Lower New Red, which comprises the Penrith Sandstone and its associ- ated breccias or ‘ brockrams,’ and the Plant Beds, and next above them the Magnesian Limestone. These three subdivisions are frequently re- ferred to collectively under the name of Dyas, though the older name just mentioned is better in many respects. The term ‘ Permian,’ at one time used for them, is unsuitable for many reasons, and many geologists are agreed that it had better be dropped.

The whole of the Red Rocks above the Magnesian Limestone are best referred to under their old name of Upper New Red, a more suitable term than Trias. Their subdivisions are, at the base the Bunter Marl,

next above that the St, Bees Sandstone, at the top of all the Keuper 36

GEOLOGY

Marl. The aggregate thickness of the Upper New Red (Trias), in Cumberland, exceeds 3,000 feet.

The present author, taking into account the full extent of the un- conformity at the base of the New Red, and adding to it the time im- plied by that needed for the formation of the marine types of the rocks of the same age deposited elsewhere, has estimated their time value at 132,000,000 years.

Forms of Life associated with the New Red.—Attention has been specially called to the evidence of a period of enormous length which _intervened between the close of Carboniferous times and the com- mencement of the conditions under which the New Red was formed. Little wonder, when the length of this interval is taken into considera- tion, that vast and important changes had been gradually brought about in the meantime. In general terms, these were the extinction of most of the older forms of life which characterized the foregoing period, and the evidence of which ancient forms of life in these rocks led geologists to refer to the groups as the Paleozoic group. Now that we know more about these matters it is found desirable to subdivide the rocks in ques- tion, and to refer to all, from the lowest Skiddaw Slate to the highest Silurians, as the Proterozoic Group, and all the remainder, to the base of the New Red, as the Deuterozoic. With the advent of the New Red we find evidences of a commencement of the present order of beings, whence the name Neozoic, first used by Edward Forbes, is now often applied to all the rocks newer than the Carboniferous.

Regarding the Cumberland New Red, almost the only traces of animal life are simply the footprints of a great variety of air-breathing vertebrates, which waded in the shallows of the old lake, or wandered amongst the desert sandhills. Evidence obtained outside of Cumberland assures us of the fact that a large proportion of these animals were reptilian, although amphibia may well have been present too. In the Penrith Sandstone, as already mentioned, the old desert sandhills, now hardened into stone, frequently show the spoors of the old kangaroo-like reptiles of this period. A very interesting set of them was collected some years ago by Mr. Geo. V. Smith, F.G.S., and his brother and sister, from quarries near Edenhall. Other similar remains occur now and then on slabs of the St. Bees Sandstone, from which rock, near Dumfries, the late Sir William Jardine collected a fine series, which were figured in The Ichnology of Annandale, and are now in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art.

The vegetation of the New Red makes a nearer approach to that of Australia than to existing European types at the present day, and is distinctly of a much higher grade than the flora of the Carboniferous Period.

(/) A remarkable and well-known sheet or sill of dolerite, the Whin Sill, traverses the Carboniferous Rocks in the district immediately to the north-east of the Pennine Fault. It formed the subject of an important paper by Mr. Clough, of the Geological Survey, in which

37

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

that author called attention to the fact that where this rock occurred an equivalent thickness of sedimentary rock was missing. Mr. Clough explained this as due to the assimilation of the sedimentary rock by the magma from which the Whin Sill was derived. Mr. Clough’s views were too advanced to meet with acceptance at the time, though the case is different now.

The present author has put forward a modification of Mr. Clough’s view, in which it is suggested that the Whin Sill (as well as every other eruptive rock) owes its origin to the slow solution of pre-existent rocks by heated waters containing alkalies, and the subsequent crystallization of the new compound when the temperature fell and the aqueous solvent escaped.

Beyond the fact that the Whin Sill is of later date than some of the disturbances which affect the Carboniferous rocks, its age is un- known. But it may be contemporaneous with the volcanic rocks of New Red age in Scotland.

VII. Ruatic Beps.—Near the close of the New Red Period the subsidence to which reference has been made was continued until it eventually carried the surface nearer and nearer to the sea level; con- sequently the desert conditions came to an end and have not affected Britain since. The change was a very gradual one, extending over a period of very great length, as is shown by the vast and important changes which took place on the continent in the meantime. In Britain these changes gave rise to a set of rocks very similar in many respects to those which were formed at a previous period, when the desert condi- tions which prevailed when the Old Red Sandstone was formed were gradually giving way before the humid conditions which characterized Carboniferous times. The strata formed at the period now under notice probably extended far and wide over western Europe. In Cumberland they may be represented only by a small patch, which has survived denudation, and occurs at Orton, west of Carlisle, it alone having been left between Arran and the midland counties of England. The strata usually consist, in their lower parts, of reddish and greenish clays with cornstones, and in their upper parts of dark shales. The total thick- ness in Britain nowhere much exceeds 100 feet. On the Continent strata of the same age range to several thousand feet, including impor- tant masses of limestone, chiefly formed by the agency of plants (Alga).

VIII. Jurassic Rocks.—With the commencement of the subsidence which ushered in the Rhetic period there set in a repetition of condi- tions very similar to those which prevailed during Carboniferous times. The Lias and Oolites everywhere succeed the New Red, so that where the one occurs, or can be proved to have existed, there also was the other. This is another way of stating the fact that not only the New Red extended continuously across the whole of what is now Cumberland, but that the whole district was formerly buried also beneath a great pile of the Lias and the Oolite. Of this vast accumulation all that is left

now is a tiny patch at Orton, west of Carlisle, which is shown upon the 38

GEOLOGY

map accompanying this article. All that need be referred to here regarding it is that it was a period of sufficient length to permit of numerous and important changes in both the organic and the inorganic worlds.

IX. Cretaczous Pertop.—In most other parts of the kingdom, and indeed over a much wider area still, a prolonged period of upheaval followed the deposition of the Jurassic Rocks, and was accompanied and followed by a considerable amount of waste. This denudation, in the course of a very long time, ended by reducing the land surface over an extensive area in western Europe into a very level plain. Then the land once more sank beneath deep water, and the Cretaceous Rocks, including the Chalk, were deposited upon this level floor over the whole area. The present writer has long maintained that Cumberland partici- pated in these changes, as much as other parts of Britain, and that the whole district was formerly covered by these interesting rocks, which of course have since entirely disappeared, as a consequence of upheaval and denudation in times later still. The only vestiges left are the remnants of the plain upon which the Cretaceous Rocks once lay, and also by here and there a few chalk flints. But the plain is an important feature in the scenery of the county.

For the vast and important biological and physical changes which took place between the close of New Red times and the commence- ment of the Tertiary Period it is here estimated that a length of 104,000,000 of years was required.

X. Posr-CretTacrous Cuances.— Few, if any, of the hills and valleys of Cumberland date farther back than Post-Cretaceous times. The history of their development will be more fully discussed presently. But in the meantime we have to take note of the fact that a very long interval of time (which the present writer would roughly estimate at 93,000,000 of years) separates the close of the Cretaceous Period from our own day. Many and very important changes in physical geography have taken place in the meantime, while in the organic world many generations of plants and animals, quite different from any now living, have come into being, and finally disappeared. The very ma- terials out of which are formed large parts of great mountain masses, like the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Andes, and the Himalayas, had not come into existence in the earlier part of the period, and since it commenced several oceanic areas and continents have more than once changed places.

(2) The principal episode with which we are most concerned in reviewing this part of the historical geology of Cumberland is con- nected with the vast and important development of volcanic action in the north-western part of the United Kingdom, and which has left its mark in Cumberland as well as in the districts around. ‘Those events may be summarized in a few lines: Long prior to the first rough shaping of any of the great natural features now existing in Cumberland, a series of volcanic vents, ranging in a northerly direction, broke out on the western side of the British Isles. This may well have happened

' 39

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

at an early period of a general upheaval, and may also have been con- nected with the same cause to which that upheaval was due. There is no reason for thinking that any of the volcanoes themselves were reared on the area under notice ; but some of the fluid rock connected with these volcanoes ate its way upward and outward from the principal foci, and has consolidated in the form of dykes, and perhaps also in the form of sills or sheets of eruptive rock in a few places." The later phases of volcanic action coincided with a general disturbance and upheaval of the greater part of Britain, and it was probably at or about this time that the principal upland areas of Cumberland—the massifs of the Lake dis- trict and Cross Fell—were elevated into nearly their present position. It was during the same period that the great Outer Pennine Fault, and some other lines of dislocation not so well known, received their last great uplift. The effect in the case of the Outer Pennine Fault may have been that Carboniferous Rocks surmounted by New Red were elevated on the north-east side of the Fault, and brought into horizontal contact with Cretaceous Rocks lying on New Red on the south-east. There are many reasons for thinking that the volcanic episode was one of great length, and that, during this prolonged period, the present river- courses were established for the first time. This subject will be reverted to further on.

At the close of the volcanic period, after the surface had been shaped by prolonged exposure to the action of rain and rivers into some- thing like its present form, hot springs arose through the faults and other fissures, and from these heated waters were deposited the contents of such mineral veins as those of the Alston Moor district. Possibly the last filling of the mineral veins of the Caldbeck Fells, and of some others in the Lake district, may date from this period, though there are grounds for thinking that, as a whole, the latter veins are of older date than those of Alston, and may have originated as far back as New Red times. It should be noted that the valuable deposits of Hematite which have made west Cumberland what it is, date also from New Red times. All the known British deposits of Hematite date from this period, and nearly all of them are due to the slow replacement of pre-existent calcareous matter by ferric oxide. Such, too, is the date and mode of origin of much of the manganese. The ores of lead, zinc and copper appear to be in all cases deposits from hot springs, and have arisen from below, instead of descending from above, as the Hama- tite has.

(4) The behaviour of such dykes as the Cleveland Dyke, which is a remarkable vertical sheet of basalt, which crosses from east Yorkshire, through Teesdale, across the Eden at Armathwaite, and the Calda, or Caldew, at Dalston, and the Solway west of Dumfries, suggests that when this dyke was intruded some of the broadest features of Cumberland had already began to assume a little of their present form. The behaviour

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GEOLOGY

of the lead veins also is very similar in this respect. The upper limits of both the dyke and the metalliferous veins roughly conform to the broad outlines of the present surface, as if the downflow of cold waters from the surface had checked the upward growth of the dyke, and had also cooled the hot springs, so that both the dyke and the mineral vein terminated upward at a lower level where there were depressions of the surface than where there were elevations. It is remarkable that this does not apply to the low ground of Edenside ; but the conformation of the surface there may well have been of more recent formation, and the depression may be due to the more rapid waste of the Cretaceous Rocks there faulted in, as compared with the surrounding rocks, which are of a more durable kind.

(c) It was probably during late Tertiary times that the last upheaval along the Pennine Faults took place. Attention has more than once before been directed to the fact that this zone of weakness is one along which differential uplifts have been many times repeated—the earliest movements probably dating back to the period following the close of Silurian times.

(2) Taking the aggregate thickness of all the marine limestones that have been formed since the close of the Cretaceous Period, and assuming that these have been formed at the rate of one foot in 25,000 years, the duration of the Tertiary Period down to the commencement of the Niveal Period, or Age of Snow, may have been about 93,000,000 years.

XI. Tue Surrace-Revier or CumBERLAND.—(qa) It has often been remarked that a right understanding of the various stages by which the surface-relief of any district has been reached involves reference to the whole of the later geological changes which that district has undergone. It also requires, especially, that we should know much concerning the developmental history of its rivers. This will be found to be true of Cumberland more perhaps than of any other county in the kingdom.

The subject is, therefore, one that would need considerable space for its full consideration ; but it may be possible to give a general idea of the essential points even within the limits of a short article like the present.

(4) The first principle to be borne in mind is that rivers of all kinds and of all countries have themselves shaped the valleys in which they flow. That is to say, no valleys, whether in Cumberland or else- where, are due to the mechanical severance of the rocks of which their valley-sides consist. Nor are they due to violent or sudden action of any kind soever. None of them, again, are the work of the sea. They are, one and all, simply depressions produced by the quiet and slow removal of rock-material by the gentle and prolonged action of rain and rivers. The chemical action set up by the acids in surface waters— especially by the humus acids—and by the oxygen in the atmosphere, have been amongst the most potent agents concerned ; and they have had, as auxiliaries in the work, the effects of heat and cold, the

41

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

mechanical action of wind and rain, and a host of minor causes, each taking its own share in the work of destroying the outer part of the rock surface. The function of the rivers is mainly that of carriers of the materials rotted from the surface of the land ; but they, too, exercise a certain amount of erosive power, and co-operate with the allied forces in the general work of lowering the surface. It is easy to realize the true function of a river if any one will observe the quantity of mud being carried seawards by the Eden at Carlisle after heavy rain in the upper part of the valley. All that mud being carried past by the river was, not so long ago, solid rock m siti. It has been rotted by the action of the weather, and now it has been stripped off that surface of the land, which is therefore lowered by the amount represented by the quantity held in suspension by the river. Small as that quantity may appear, one has to remember that the process of stripping off the surface of the rock is going on continually, and has been doing so, on the surface of what was land for the time being, from the earliest period known. It is solely to the prolonged continuance of this process that the carving of the valleys is due.

The next general principle to be borne in mind is that no two sorts of rock yield to the same kind of attack quite at the same rate. Some appear capable of withstanding exposure for very long periods without seeming to be any the worse, while others waste appreciably in the course of a single lifetime. It is this differential rate of decay which is the chief factor concerned in producing even some of the larger physical features of the landscape. All rocks waste more or less ; but the rock that wastes at the most rapid rate will be the first to be lowered to sea level ; while the more durable rocks, whose surface is being lowered at a slower rate, soon attain to a relatively higher level, and are very much longer in wasting to the level of the sea than the rock which when first exposed stood up with them.

Lastly, the reader must endeavour to realize that the processes to which the configuration of a country is due are by no means rapid in their operation ; but that, on the contrary, they act in general quietly, gently, and usually at rates so slow as to be imperceptible. We have to deal with effects that have been produced not within a century, or within a thousand centuries, but which have required periods of time too long for the human intellect to comprehend, and the immensity of whose length can only be compared to the almost infinite intervals of space with which the astronomer has to deal.

(c) Leaving general principles, we may now pass on to consider their application to the district under notice: The reader of the fore- going section of this article will have noted that there have been three (or more) great piles of rock laid in succession one on another, upon what one may term the ‘foundation stones’ of the rocks of Cumber- land. For the present we must dismiss the present configuration entirely from our minds, and try to realize that there was at one time an extensive plain, formed by the edges of a vast thickness of Cambrian, Ordovician

42

GEOLOGY

and Silurian rocks, which extended far and wide, and far beyond the limits of the county. The rocks forming this great floor are very hard and durable, taken as a whole. It was upon this nearly-level founda- tion that (after many changes had arisen) the Upper Old Red Sandstone and the Carboniferous Rocks were spread out, layer upon layer, to a thickness of many thousands of feet. The general relation of the lower portion of these rocks to the floor beneath at the stage under considera- tion is illustrated by fig. 1. In this the general lie of the old rocks is shown, and the relationship of the granite masses, as well as the hypothetical remains of the Caledonian Old Red, to the older sediments is also indicated in a diagramatic way. As a whole the Carboniferous Rocks are less durable than the rocks beneath. The former may waste, say, five feet in a given time, during which the latter may waste three.

Now it is important to remember that after the close of the Carboniferous Period the whole pile, floor and all, was folded and fractured. A great centre of upfolding coincided with the present Lake district; and the upward movement over that centre was carried to such an extent that the old floor was there lifted to a higher level than the top of the Carboniferous Rocks in the district to the east. More- over the great zone of fracture and disturbance, known collectively as the Pennine Faults, already in existence as a zone of weakness, gave way once again, and the rocks on the north-east side of this zone were elevated to a higher position than those on the side opposite. While these movements were in progress denudation continually attacked the rocks on the higher ground, so that after an exposure for a great length of time the whole of the Carboniferous Rocks were worn away from the summit of the dome, and much of them from the other zone of elevation on the east side of the Pennine Faults. —

It was upon an irregular surface formed out of the associated Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous strata, all more or less disturbed, that the New Red Rocks in their turn were afterwards spread out. Fig. 2 may help to make this relationship more clear, especially if it be studied in connection with fig. 1. The section is arranged to show that at least the higher members of the New Red formerly extended right over what is now the Lake district, as well as across the Pennine Faults, on to the area which now forms the Cross Fell uplands.

To understand what ensued it may be as well if we agree to refer to the two floors just mentioned by definite names. The older one we may call ‘the First Plain ’—for although in minor details the surface was uneven, yet regarded broadly its nature was more or less as much a plain as most submarine surfaces around the British Isles are now. For the surface, more or less irregular, upon which the New Red was deposited, we may also employ the term ‘ plain,’ and refer to the floor below the New Red as ‘ the Second Plain.’

After the close of the period which commenced with the formation

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A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

of the New Red and ended with the Neocomian (the Lower Neozoic Period) there was a repetition of the folding and faulting along the same tracts of Cumberland as before ; so that the Lake district dome, and the country east of the Pennine Faults were again elevated, and the lately-deposited strata removed from these areas just as was the case in former times. The whole of Cumberland (and indeed the whole of Britain and much of western Europe as well) underwent denudation to such an extent that a Third Plain, much more uniform in character than the other two, was gradually shaped. It is important to remember that over the Lake district this plain was shaped out of the edges of highly-inclined Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian rocks; and that around the Lake district and east of the Pennine Faults it was carved mainly out of rocks of Carboniferous age, just as the Second Plain was, while the remaining part consisted of New Red with some few outlying remnants of the Jurassic Rocks which had escaped destruction. This relationship is illustrated by fig. 3.

Now it was upon this very even Third Plain that the Cretaceous and succeeding rocks were laid down.

(2) Finally, in Tertiary times, and perhaps all through the great volcanic episode, there went on a renewal of the upheaval over the same zone as before. Now it was upon this surface, formed mainly of Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks, that the rivers of Cumberland first origin- ated. There are many facts, which the present author has discussed elsewhere, which seem to point to the conclusion that the chief Post- Cretaceous uplands did not quite coincide with the areas which stand highest now. The behaviour of many of the rivers of north-western England seems to point to their original starting-point having lain at a spot a short distance south of where the town of Appleby is now. At the period under consideration the great depression of Edenside was covered by some Post-Triassic rock, whose upper surface stood at a relatively higher level than the rocks around. On the assumption that such was the case, it is not difficult to explain the anomalous features presented by the head waters of the Tees, the Tyne, the Lune, the Eden, the Swale and others, if we assume that they all originally started seaward from an ellipsoidal area composed of rocks softer than those which now appear at the surface. Their courses seem to have been first established in this, and then to have been modified by the unequal rate of lowering of the various surfaces upon which their courses descended in subsequent times. The idea involves many complications, and it may require much think- ing over before it can be fully grasped. But a study of the diagram- sections (figs. 1 to 4) may help to make the supposed sequence of events clearer. The longer axis of the ellipsoidal area above referred to, or, in other words, the primitive watershed of the Lake district, may have coincided in position with Grasmere, High Street, Crosby Ravensworth, Warcop and the head of Lunedale.

(e) The elevation of this ellipsoidal area into land commenced (it is here assumed) in early Post-Cretaceous times, and the rivers began

46

GEOLOGY

to flow at first over rock of uniform composition at an early stage in the process of elevation. As the land gently rose and a larger area was exposed, the streams enlarged their channels, and probably maintained their original courses without any important deviations all through the period while the channels lay exclusively through the uppermost rock. By degrees, as the upheaval slowly proceeded, and the waste of the surface went on, the outer coating (if one may so express it) of the dome, was worn through, and the head waters of the rivers flowed sea- wards across rocks of quite a different kind from that in which their channels commenced. For, assuming that the outer envelope consisted of Cretaceous Rocks, it has been shown that these lay upon a floor consisting of the denuded ends of various strata which comprised rocks of the most diverse powers of resistance to subaerial denudation. These embraced representatives of nearly the whole of the Pre-Cretaceous rocks of Cumberland. In some few cases the efforts of the river to maintain its primitive course were more or less successful, and where that was the case the streams made their way across every rock, durable or not durable, that their channels happened to intersect. In many instances the rivers continued to cope with and to overcome all the difficulties, one after another, that arose in their way, and succeeded in maintaining their original courses without much change. In all cases of that kind the erosive power of the river in carving its own channel has exceeded that of ordinary atmospheric waste in lowering the surface adjoining the river channels. As a rule this is so; in other words, a river usually lowers the torrential part of its channel faster than subaerial erosion lowers any adjoining part of its basin. In a few cases the two processes go on side by side and at nearly equal rates. In some exceptional in- stances a part of the basin of a river adjacent to its channel may be lowered by subaerial erosion at a faster rate than the river lowers the adjoining part of the channel itself. Sooner or later this results in a diversion of the stream into the new course, which the river unavoidably follows as far as the new channel offers the easiest route seawards.

This factor in the evolution of land surfaces has brought about many important changes in the initial direction of rivers in Cumberland, as elsewhere ; and is answerable for many of the inosculating valleys which characterize so much of the scenery.

. Another case of a nature analogous to the last, and which has led

to many important modifications of the river-courses in the Lake district, may next be considered. It has frequently happened that a sheet of soft rock laid down upon a floor of hard has been bent by earth movements into a dome. If we think of the inner mass as the core of the dome, it may help to simplify the description that follows. A river-course well established in the envelope of softer rock, cuts its way after a time down to the core. Where the difference in destructibility of the outer mantle is much greater than that of the core (as where a mantle of soft lime- stones enwraps a core of tough greywacke), the river gradually tends to wander away from its primary course, and as the extent of exposure of

47

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

the core increases, the river-course by degrees merges into line with the junction between the inner and the outer rock. Indeed it may finally take a very different course from what it had on first reaching the enveloping rock. The Lune between Ravenstonedale and Tebay and the upper waters of the Lowther affords good examples of these modifi- cations. Both began to flow at a very much higher geological horizon, and in rocks which have long since wasted entirely away. Both have cut their way down into a complex mass of rocks whose weakest direc- tions lie transverse to the original course of the stream. Hence the present trunk stream of the Lune, which at one time rose on a tributary of that river over the summit of the Howgill Fells and flowed westward, just on the north side of the line of highest ground there, has gradually followed the edge of the Mountain Limestone down hill, as the envelope consisting of this rock has gradually wasted from the hard, dome-shaped core of greywacke. This explains how it happens that the river flowing westward through low ground on the north side of the axis of the Lake district abruptly turns to the south at Tebay, and thence cuts its way right across a mountain mass, consisting of some of the toughest rocks in the kingdom, to the low ground beyond, and flows past Kirkby Lonsdale to the sea.

As this example is typical, and its comprehension involves a reference to the mode of attack of rivers in all cases of this kind, a brief explanation of the process may be given here: River valleys are wide where the waste by atmospheric agencies keeps ahead of the rate at which the river cuts down its channel ; and they are narrow where the reverse is the case. That is to say a river-channel is usually narrow where the stream traverses hard rocks, and wide where it crosses soft. Now a river flows at a slower rate through a wide channel than through one that is narrow. The Eden for example quietly, almost lazily, eddies its way seaward through the soft marls and the alluvium which form the meadow land about Lazonby ; but when it arrives at Eden Lacy and finds its channel narrowed to the hard rocky gorge formed by the Penrith Sandstone there, it seems to wake up and to hurry onward at a rate very different from what it had in the wide expanse formed by the softer rocks. From side to side the river at this point is not more than two thirds as wide as it was a mile above ; hence its swifter flow. Thus the power of running water to transport stones, and therefore to wear its river-channel, is proportional to the sixth power of its velocity. That is to say, water flowing at a rate sufficient to roll a stone a quarter of an ounce in weight, will, if its rate of flow is doubled, be able to drift a stone weighing a pound, and so on in the same proportion. Where hard rocks form a river-bed, and the channel therefore is narrower, the rate of flow of the stream is increased, and the river exerts in consequence greater erosive power, just at the point where that extra effort is most required if the river is to maintain its course. In other words, where impediments are placed in their way the streams rise to the occasion and put forth an

amount of energy sufficient to overcome the obstacle. The beautiful 48

GEOLOGY

gorge of the Eden, extending from Eden Lacy past Nunnery Walks and Armathwaite, offers an excellent illustration of this principle ; and others little inferior to this occur elsewhere in the county.

The same principle which enables a river to cut its way from soft rocks across harder, on a small scale, is identical with that which has come into action on the larger scale under consideration. All that is needed in the initial stages is that the rock through which the river is cutting down to the harder mass beneath shall remain long enough to establish the stream in its new course, and that the rock on either side of the gradually-developing ridge shall not waste at a faster rate than the river can keep pace with in its work of excavating the gorge. It must be obvious that if the area above the gorge should happen to waste at a more rapid pace than the | gorge is being excavated, there must presently come a time when the river can no longer carry on that work, but, instead, must find egress to the sea by another channel. In this case the river is severed in two ; the middle of the gorge becomes the watershed of the lower half of the original river, and after a time usually sends a small tributary to the parent stream, which may eventually for a distance flow in a direction diametrically opposite to that which it had at first.

(f) The somewhat complex and apparently theoretical section just ended is inserted here with the object of explaining some very anomalous features which characterize many of the valleys of Cumberland. Fore- most amongst these features are the many so-called ‘ inosculating ’ valleys already referred to, and which occur in various parts of the district. What is meant by that term is that there are often two streams flowing in opposite directions in what is manifestly one and the same valley, which therefore runs continuously across the present watershed. Nearly all the main roads, and most of the railway routes traversing mountain districts follow inosculating valleys. The pass at Dunmail Raise, which is traversed yearly by thousands of tourists, may serve as an example. Briefly, they may be explained as due to a gradual displacement of the watershed, as the surface has been lowered and the river has encountered rocks showing different combinations of durability from those in which its course has been originally established. Some of the rivers of Cumber- land may have been severed in this way at more than one place. The Petteril, for example, probably originated near where Matterdale is now, and flowed north-eastward to join the Eden west of the present course of that river near Great Salkeld. But two sets of depressions have originated across its original course, or, what comes to the same thing, two sets of ridges have been developed at a rate faster than the erosive power of the Petteril could keep pace with. As a consequence the upper half of the Petteril has been diverted into one of these growing depressions and now joins the Eamont below Ullswater. A new watershed has arisen in what is now Greystoke Park, and the Petteril goes on in its original channel from there to near Catterlen. Furthermore, with the continued waste of the surface, the gradual evolution of the great ridge of Penrith Sandstone forming Lazonby Fell has proceeded at a rate more rapid than the river

I 49 .

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

could keep pace with, and as a consequence the stream has turned into a new channel, leaving its former course on Lazonby Fell as a simple de- pression. In two addresses given before the Cumberland and Westmor- land Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science, in 1880 and 1881,’ the present author fully discussed these and some allied matters. The papers referred to contained the earliest attempts at dis- cussing the origin of any features of the kind above briefly noticed.

The subject of the evolution of the river valleys is so intimately connected with the evolution of the broader features of the scenery that no account of the historical geology of the district would be complete without some reference to it, and more especially so now that the sub- ject in general is attracting so much attention in America and on the Continent : furthermore, the evolution of the plains of Cumberland cannot be rightly understood until after all the factors concerned in their history have been considered, and the rivers are amongst the most important of these factors.

) To the casual observer the broader geological features of Cumber- land resolve themselves into (1) the coast-line, (2) two mountain areas represented by the Lake district and the upland tract between Brampton and Alston, (3) the Carlisle plain. Closer examination makes it evident that other features will have to be separately considered.

The history of the coast-line may be told in a few words: The North Channel, the Solway and the Irish Sea are different parts of what was, before the Glacial Period, simply the basin of one great river. With the submergence that followed the Glacial Period, the sea has been admitted all over the area, and up the mouths of the tributary streams; so the Solway is merely a drowned river valley. Some modifications of this earlier feature have arisen through a partial silting-up of the river mouth, and through a trifling amount of waste of the coast-line by the action of the sea. Minor details of change have also originated through the rises of the land, and the consequent formation of raised beaches.

(4) The great Cumberland plain is a remnant, now much cut up, of what was formerly a great dome, with its higher and central parts coincident with the general summit-level of the Lake district. There is no better way of grasping the plain-like character of these mountain summits as a whole than to study any good relief model of the Lake district, such as those exhibited in Keswick. The plain in question is regarded by the writer of this article as simply a re-exposed part of the very flat and even surface upon which some easily-wasted rocks, possibly the Cretaceous rocks, formerly lay. Whatever the rock in question was, it was certainly deposited in horizontal layers on a surface shaped out of the upturned ends of rocks comprising representatives of all the strata older than itself. Subsequently this pile was locally upheaved so as to form a low dome coincident with the area of the present Lake district. While that upheaval was in progress there, a more abrupt upheaval commenced along the north-east side of the great pre-existent zone of fracture, known

* See Trans. Cumb. and West. Assoc., pt. xiv. p. 73, and pt. xiii. p. 89. 50

GEOLOGY

as the Outer Pennine Fault, which extends past the western foot of Cross Fell north-westward, through Cumberland, towards Brampton. The upward movement brought hard and durable rocks of many different ages into contact with the softer rocks (the supposed Cretaceous Rocks). The date of the main upheaval was probably coincident with the great vol- canic episode, and probably also continued throughout nearly the whole of that period.

In course of time the outer envelope disappeared from the uplands, leaving vestiges of its former presence in the gently inclined surface which the summit-level of the mountain areas evidently presents, from whatever elevated position we may regard it. The softer envelope would disappear latest in the parts where its base was nearest the sea level. Hence the very obvious plain extending from the foot of the Cross Fell Escarpment to Carlisle, thence northward gently rising to the Bewcastle Fells, and westward to the Solway. This plain is referred to generally as the Third Plain. The diagram-sections which accompany this chapter may serve to explain its nature better than any description.

There are two other surfaces (or plains, as they might still be termed). The next older to the third plain is that upon which the New Red once lay. It was never very even in form, or perhaps it would be more correctly described as originally very uneven. But its re-exposure has left features on the outskirts of the Lake district which cannot well be mistaken. Lastly, there is the re-exposed surface upon which the Upper Old Red and the Carboniferous rocks at one time lay. Like the other two surfaces this has shared in all the disturbances that have affected the rocks in Post-Carboniferous times ; but its re-exposure has given rise to inclined surfaces on the outer margin of the Lake district which form important elements in the surface-relief. These three ‘plains’ or re-exposed rock-floors, embrace between them the whole of the broader surface-features of Cumberland, except the face of the Pennine Escarp- ment and the line of the coast. In other words, the whole of Cumberland consists of representatives of these three plains, more or less disturbed, and variously combined with each other.

XII. Posr-Priocens CHANGES oF CiimaTE.—(az) One of the most important episodes in the geology of Cumberland is undoubtedly that connected with the long period of snow and ice which forms the closing chapters in the history of the past. The surface-features almost everywhere underwent considerable modification, lakes were ex- cavated where only river valleys were before, corries were scooped out of the mountain flanks, a vast and important series of glacial grooves was formed, crags and other irregularities of the surface were rounded off, the accumulated results of many thousands of years’ weathering were swept away, and, finally, nearly all the lowlands were covered with a mantle of boulder clay and other deposits of glacial origin. Important changes also took place in the elevation of the land whereby the form of the coast-line was greatly modified. Finally, biological changes, which have left their mark in many ways connected with the sequence

BL

A HIsTORY OF CUMBERLAND

of events since the beginning of the historical period, were brough. about in connection with the episode about to be noticed.

During nearly all the various geological periods which have been reviewed in the foregoing section, the climate of Cumberland does not seem to have been at any time characterized by any conditions of ex- ceptionally low temperature. It is true that evidence of glaciers is to be found in the New Red breccias near Appleby ; but that probably means no more than that on the uplands here and there might then be formed a glacier, just as there are glaciers on the upland areas not far removed from many desert tracts at the present day. The Cretaceous Period, and probably much of the succeeding Tertiary Period also, may well have been characterized by climatal conditions in which the temperature was above rather than below the present average. In this matter very much depends upon altitude above the sea, as well as upon proximity to zones of warm and moist aerial currents.

(6) Near the close of the Tertiary Period, and long after the volcanic eruptions had ceased, we have evidence supplied from other areas, that the area now represented by Cumberland had been gradually elevated to a considerable height above the level of the sea. At the period at which this particular episode is supposed to have commenced, all the present rivers of the district had attained something of their present form, after the long and varied ancestral history of which an outline has been given in the foregoing paragraphs. One may indeed say that under the prolonged action of rain and river the country had by this time assumed nearly the same general configuration that it has to-day.

After a time, the elevatory forces gained upon the destructive forces which were then, as now, at work lowering the surface of the land, and as a consequence its uplands rose to an elevation higher, perhaps by nearly a thousand feet, than their present position. The whole of north-western Europe participated in the movement, which appears to have reached its maximum in Scandinavia. Partly as a consequence of this elevation of the land, the average temperature fell at least a few degrees below what it is now; and the climatal conditions underwent further modification, owing to the fact that, with the elevation, a great tract of land west of Britain was raised above the sea level. As a con- sequence, the eastern margin of the Atlantic was removed some two hundred and fifty miles to the west of St. Bees’ Head. There are many reasons for believing the conjoined oceanic and aerial currents known as the Gulf Stream had been in existence long prior to the period under consideration, and that they must have remained in full operation throughout the whole of the long period of snow. But with these sources of heat removed to so much greater distance, the climatal conditions became much less equable than they are now. Indeed, for many reasons, it is probable that although Cumberland then received perhaps even more heat from the sun than it does at present, just as the snow-clad sum- mits of the Alps receive a sixth more sun heat than the valleys, yet, in Cumberland then, as on the Alpine slopes now, the precipitation took

52

GEOLOGY

exclusively the form of snow. Perhaps it is as well to push the com- parison farther, and to state that although the Glacial Period was one of snow and ice, yet it was not necessarily a period of very low temperature, any more so than characterizes the higher glacier regions of Switzerland to-day.

As a consequence of the increased elevation there was land con- nection with the continent on both the east and the south of Britain. For what is now the North Sea was then a broad plain, through which the Rhine flowed northward, receiving as it went all the drainage of eastern Britain, and discharging it into the Atlantic, somewhere to the north-east of Shetland. The depression now occupied by the English Channel had already been shaped into much its present form as a river valley, and with the elevation referred to it remained so. The same is true of the Irish Sea ; and the rivers of Cumberland, joined with those of the south of Scotland, united with the others that now discharge into that area, and reached the Atlantic to the south-west of Ireland.

(c) The occurrence of wide stretches of dry land, where now there is sea, had a most important effect in modifying the climate. Indeed, taken in conjunction with the increased elevation, and with the proximity of the mountain areas of southern Scandinavia and north- western Scotland to the vast quantities of aqueous vapour drifted north- eastward in connection with the Gulf Stream, the factor just mentioned may have played an important part in the development of the peculiar conditions which characterized this period. It may be as well to repeat in this place that the Glacial Period was not so much a period of low temperature, as one during which more snow fell during the year than the summer’s heat sufficed to melt. To bring about such conditions four factors are required. (1) There must be an extensive area of ocean where distillation by the heat of the sun goes on at a high rate. (2) The products must be transferred from this area by the action of currents, aqueous or aerial. (3) There must be an upland area in the path of these currents, which acts as a refrigerator, and converts the aqueous vapour into snow. (4) The local conditions must be such that more snow is precipitated than is removed from the land. These conditions are quite compatible with a comparatively mild climate, and do not by any means require so low a temperature as is generally supposed to have prevailed during the Glacial Period. Strictly speaking, it would be more correct to refer to this period as the Niveal Period, seeing that its essential characteristic was the widespread prevalence of snow.

Snow does not flow off the land like water does, hence, if only a little more fell each year than was melted, it was bound sooner or later to accumulate at the valley heads until it became compacted into ice. In this state it must soon have begun to flow down the valleys in the form of glaciers. It is as well to remember that the ice simply took the place of river water, and moved, as rivers do, outward from the main areas of precipitation, downhill and seawards.

There are good geological reasons for believing that this state of

53

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

things continued for many thousands of years ; the snowfall, however, gradually increasing, and thereby chilling the air around, and perennial snow covering an increasingly larger area on the uplands, fogs becoming more and more prevalent, and less and less rain falling even in the summer months. ‘These various causes tending to lower the tempera- ture produced cumulative effects.

Long prior to the time when the snow began to lie all the year round on the lowlands, Cumberland was still inhabited, especially during the summer months, by many of the large mammalia of those days which migrated thus far from the south-east in quest of the extensive feeding grounds they required. With the great herbivorous beasts came also some of the carnivora, amongst them the ancestor of the African lion, whose shaggy mane and breast may be a vestige of the thick rough coat of spotted fur which enabled him to fare well in a cold climate. With these and other carnivorous animals it is not unlikely that savage man may also have first visited these parts, and have already begun to use his rough stone implements in contending with the other denizens of the land for the possession of the hunting grounds.

(d) Slowly and gradually the snow spread to the lowlands. Glaciers in the north-west of Scotland had already coalesced to such an extent as to cover the whole country there. As time went on these conditions began to prevail further south ; the areas first to be so affected being those which are characterized by the heaviest rainfall at the present day. Before the advancing ice the plants and animals not yet accus- tomed to cold conditions had either to migrate southward or to suffer extermination. As they disappeared, others of more boreal habits took their place, and advanced southward in proportion as the land became uninhabitable. So reindeer and arctic animals and plants eventually migrated as far south as central France. It must be remembered that these migrations were facilitated by the land connection that then existed between Britain and the continent by way of what are now the North Sea and the English Channel.

Eventually more snow fell even on the lowlands of Cumberland than the summer’s heat sufficed to melt, and then glacial conditions may be said to have set in there, just as they had done long before in the country to the north. The glaciers grew, then coalesced, and eventually crept outward from their mountain birthplace to the low ground beyond. These conditions must have remained for a very long period, if we may judge by the effects produced upon the rock surfaces and by the enormous quantities of rock material transported outward from the mountain centres to the low ground beyond.

(e) In a county like Cumberland, in which so much interest centres upon the lakes and the mountain features, the phase under consideration is one of great importance. There can be no question whatever, amongst field geologists at any rate, that all the lake basins of Cumberland were carved out of the solid rock at this time by the long-continued action of thick masses of glacier ice. ‘There is really but little need to

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add anything here to what Sir Andrew Ramsay has said on the subject in general, or to what the late Rev. J. Clifton Ward has written in regard to the glacial origin of the Cumberland and Westmorland lakes in particular.’ All of them are simply old river valleys deepened and widened by the long-continued erosive action of glacier ice. The slow and persistent grinding to which this erosion is due produced most effect at the points where the motion of the bottom layers was at its greatest and where the pressure was at its maximum. It may be as well to bear in mind in this connection the important fact that ice expands with a rise of temperature, and contracts with a fall, to a greater extent than any other solid known. A thick mass of ice under cold atmospheric conditions is warmer below in proportion to its depth, be- cause it is not so much chilled by surface cold, and, at the same time, its lower parts intercept much of the heat radiated outward from the earth. That is to say, the base of the ice is warmer than its upper surface ; and, being warmer, expands more, and therefore slowly creeps outward in the direction of least resistance, which usually follows a parabolic curve upwards from the sole of the ice and outwards from its source. As the weight of a column of ice one thousand feet in thickness on a base of a square foot is more than twenty-five tons, one can readily see that this steady upward and outward creep of the bottom layers, charged as they are with grit and rock fragments, must give rise in course of long periods to erosive effects of considerable importance. The fact that ice is nearly transparent to all the light rays and to most of the heat rays from the sun, while the foreign matter within the ice is not, helps still further to raise the temperature of the lower parts of the ice, and, by making them expand most, propels them forward over the rocks.

It may be mentioned here that several other lakes than those now existing as such formerly had a place in Cumberland and Westmorland. There was a large one, now occupied by alluvium, between Ullswater and St. Ninian’s Church on the Eamont. The lip of the rock basin which contained that lake has been notched through by the river, and now forms the picturesque gorge of Udford Crags adjoining Edenhall. Another lake of larger size, also now silted up, once extended along the Eden from Appleby to Eden Lacy. Here, again, the beautiful rocky gorge and the rapids on the Eden at Eden Lacy are simply vestiges of the lip of the rock basin that formerly held in the water of the Eden and formed the lake in question, until the river notched the gorge deeper and let the water out. There was asimilar lake, also with a gorge below it, at Kirkoswald. East of Keswick there was one at Threlkeld, of which the former lip is represented by the picturesque gorge on the Greta between that place and Keswick. Indeed it would be easy to multiply examples, for they are to be found here and there all over the county. All are simply enlargements of old river valleys, effected by glacial erosion. All have been true rock basins, which have once held lakes, and have been converted into meadow land by the double process

1 Quart. Fourn. Geol. Soc., xxx. p. 96. 55

A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND

of the lowering of their outlets by the erosive action of the river, and the carrying in of sediments at their upper ends.

During the phase of glacial action now under consideration, the same cause which enlarged and deepened the river valleys also carved great grooves upon the surface of the solid rock on the land. Some of these grooves, even in Cumberland, are so large as almost to be entitled to be called valleys. But as we advance further north into Scotland these features increase in size and importance. Even around Kelso, for example, the hill-shaded maps of the Ordnance Survey show them in great force, sweeping with an undeviating course right across rocks of the most diverse composition and age. Near Blairgowrie again, they are even more striking ; while in connection with the Highland rocks they reach even larger proportions still.

Another feature of some importance in the scenic geology of Cum- berland is represented by the corries or cirques. ‘These are usually excavations on the hillsides, shaped like half a bowl or half a funnel. Commonly they are characterized by a remarkable regularity of form, quite unlike any features produced by the action of any subaerial causes. Their origin has given rise to much difference of opinion. The present writer, dealing in 1874 especially with those of the Lake district, attri- buted their origin’ to the effects of a slow rotatory movement or eddy of the ice. There are some very fine examples of these in the valley of the Calda, or Caldew, above Carrock Fell; others equally fine, but much larger, occur at Melmerby ; while there are few dales in the Lake district that do not show some traces of them, usually near the upper part.

(f) Throughout the greater part of the Glacial Period the move- ments of the Cumberland ice were seawards and mainly downhill. But while the changes just referred to were in progress, the ice from Gallo- way had coalesced with the general stream from the southern uplands of Scotland, and had already begun to make a slow advance southwards across the Solway—the ice from northern Cumberland extending with equal slowness in the opposite direction. The result may be readily con- ceived : the opposing streams, after a prolonged contest for mastery, eventually became united, and began to send their surplus overflow east- ward along the border counties. This is another way of stating the fact that a great conjoined scream, formed of both Cumberland and Scottish ice, once flowed over the watershed of the Eden and the Tyne, and hence seawards by the Tyne valley. On the south of the zone where the Cumberland and Scottish streams met end to end, the movement on the low ground was mainly southward, and continued thence at least as far as North Wales.

(g) Eventually, the heavy snowfall due to the condensation of the aqueous vapour of the Gulf Stream by the uplands of the west of Scotland, caused such an increase in the volume of the Scottish ice that it overcame the resistance offered by part of the ice from Cumberland, thereby bringing its movements around Carlisle to a standstill for a time,

* Quart. Fourn. Geol. Soc. xxxi. p. 99 ; Geol. Mag., ii. vol. ii. No. x. p. 486. 56

GEOLOGY

and, eventually, after ponding it back in Edenside, actually repelled it with such force that it was obliged to flow in a direction diametrically Opposite to that which it had maintained for so long during the earlier part of the Glacial Period. Hence much of the ice of the upper parts of Edenside streamed over the Shap Fells southward by way of Kendal and Lancaster