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OF THE
Association: a
ancement of Literature and science |
No. CS EE * oe
vo G. GOODCHILD, F.G,8.\ Fas. st
OF THE BRITISH ORNILHOLOGISTS ” UNION 3 rf ee
2S BENES AGRG@L SURVEYS salads fe tamen ate
PRICE “70, OEE, ONE > SHILLING.” A
‘TWO SHILLINGS AND "SIXPENCE.
TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
Cumberland and C@lestmorland
Association
FOR THE
Advancement of Literature and Science.
No. XVII—1891-92.
Mmarep, BY .J. G. GOODCHILD, F.G;S., .E.Z.S.
MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION ;
H.M. GEOL, SURVEY.
PRICE TO MEMBERS, ONE SHILLING.
NON-MEMBERS, TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE.
CARLISLE:
PRINTED BY G. & T. COWARD, THE WORDSWORTH PRESS,
> 1893.
NOTICE.
poe
It is the intention of the Council to reserve a few pages of the
Transactions for ADVERTISEMENTS. The Secretaries will be
glad to quote prices, and receive applications for space.
The Secretaries will be glad to receive copies of Parts III.
and IV. Members having copies to dispose of will kindly
communicate with the Secretaries,
CONTENTS.
RULES
List oF OFFICERS
ADDRESSES OF HONORARY SECRETARIES OF THE SEVERAL Loca
SoctEeTIEs a te a3 wes
Loca SuB-CoMMITTEES
MEMORANDA FOR MEMBERS
List or AssocrATION MEMBERS
REPORTS FROM THE ASSOCIATED SOCIETIES
REpPorRT OF ASSOCIATION SECRETARY
TREASURER’S ACCOUNT
PRESIDENTS AppRESS: ‘‘The Writers of English Fiction in the
Kighteenth Century.” By W. C. Guttiy, Q.C., M.P.
Papers READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING :—
‘“Observations on the New Red Series of Cumberland and
Westmorland, with especial reference to Classification.”
By J. G. Goopcuitp, H.M. Geol. Survey, F.G.S.
‘‘Notes on the Water Supply of Edenside.” By J. G.
GoopcniLp, H.M. Geol. Survey, F.G.S. 306
‘Reforms needed in Criminal Procedure.” By H. A.
LeprarpD, M.D. Edin. ; F.R.C.S. Eng.
“The Brougham Family.” By Major ARNISON
PAPERS COMMUNICATED TO THE SOCIETIES, AND SELECTED BY THE
ASSOCIATION CoUNCIL FOR PUBLICATION :—
29
‘* Border Wars and the —
(Keswick) . vs =e act
‘Reminiscences in the Study of Natural History.” By Tom
DuckwortH. (Carlisle) aoe
‘‘The Monuments in the Nave and Aisle of eo Abbey.”
By the Rev. H. WHITEHFAD. (Brampton) £. ys
By Tuomas Carrick.
53
85
69
91
wU LES
OF THE
Cumberland and Westmorland Association for
the Advancement of Literature and Science.
1.—That the Association be called the “CUMBERLAND AND
WESTMORLAND ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF LITERA-
TURE AND SCIENCE.”
2.—The Association shall consist of the following Societies :—
Keswick Literary and Scientific Society, Maryport Literary and
Scientific Society, Longtown Literary and Scientific Society,
Carlisle Scientific Society and Field Naturalists’ Club, Ambleside
and District Literary and Scientific Society, Silloth and Holme
Cultram Literary and Scientific Society, Brampton Literary and
Scientific Society and Field Naturalists’ Club, Penrith and District
Literary and Scientific Society, Windermere Literary and Scientific,
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members shall be termed ‘Association Members.”
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by the regulations of their respective Societies, shall,be members
of the Cumberland and Westmorland Association,
‘
Wis
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as the author may prepare or sanction ; also those portions of the
Association Transactions that may be deemed advisable.
g.—The Council shall endeavour to promote co-operation among
OE ————<<“« =
aa
vil.
existing Societies, and.may assist in the formation of new ones; it
may also aid in the establishment of classes in connection with
any of the associated societies.
10.—Affiliated Societies shall contribute annually towards the
general funds of the Association, Sixpence for each of their
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43 3S od. in one sum. 7
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is held.
13.—Past Presidents of the Association shall be permanent
members of the Council, and be described as past Presidents.
14.—The travelling expenses of all who assist in carrying out
the programme of the various affiliated Societies shall be defrayed
by the Society assisted. .
The Eighteenth ANNUAL MEETING will be held in the Summer
of 1893, and due notice of the place of Meeting and of the arrange-
ments will be sent direct to all members of the Association.
Members willing to contribute original Articles on subjects of
local interest, or short JVotices of anything that may be considered
worth recording of local and scientific value, should communicate
with the Honorary Secretaries, J. B. BaiLey, Esq., Eaglesfield
Street, Maryport; or H. L. Barker, Esq., Sunnyside, Silloth,
OFFICERS FOR THE SESSION 1892-93.
President.
W. ©. GULLY, Esq., Q.C., M.P.
Past-Presidents.
Tne Late Lorp BisHoP oF CARLISLE.
Tue Late I. Fuercner, Esq., M.P., F.R.S.
Tur Hon. P. 8. Wynp
HAM, M.P.
Rozert Frercuson, Esq., M.P., F.S.A.
Ricuarp §. Frercuson, Esq., M.A,, LL.M., F.S.A.
Davin AtyswortH, Esq.
R. A. Atrison, Esq., M.P.
Tue Rigur REY. THE BisHop oF BARROW-IN-FURNESS.
Keswick
Maryport
Carlisle
Ambleside
Silloth
Brampton
Penrith
Vice-Presidents.
Windermere ...
Keswick
Maryport
Carlisle
Ambleside
Silloth
Brampton
Penrith
Windermere ...
Delegates.
Rev. J. N. Hoare
H. Bumpy, Esq.
J. A. Wueattey, Esq.
C. W. Suara, Esq.
Rev. S. Farr.
G. Watson, Esq.
B, A. Irvine, Esq.
J. J. SpeppiIne, Esq.
E. W. Licurroot, Esq.
Rev. H. A. MAcCPHERSON.
xEO. Garey, Hsq.
G. J. Jounson, Esq.
Rev. T. P. Monyineron, M.A.
B. A. Irvine, Esq.
Tos. Carrick, Esq.
R. H. Hamiuron, Esq.
Rev. H. A. MAcPHERSON
J. Bentiry, Hsq.
Rey. J. Roprnson.
J. 8. Yeates, Esq.
8. ATKINSON, Esq.
ix.
Hon. Association Secretaries.
J. B. Batuny, Esq., Haglesfield Street, Maryport.
H. L. BARKER, Esq., Sunnyside, Silloth.
Editor.
J. G. GoopcutLp, Esq., F.G.S., F.Z.S., M.B.0.U., H.M. Geol. Survey,
Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh.
Librarian.
R, Crowber, Esq., M.A., Stanwix, Carlisle.
Delegate to British Association.
J. G. Goopcuup, Esq., F.G.S., F.Z.S., M.B.0.U., H.M. Geol. Survey,
Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh.
Zoological Recorders.
‘Rev. H. A. Macrnerson, M.A., M.B.O.U., 20 Cecil Street, Carlisle.
J. Norman Rosinson, Esq., Croft House, Cargo, Carlisle.
Botanical Recorders.
Rev. R. Woop, M.A.. Rosley Vicarage, Carlisle.
W. Hopeson, Esq., A.L.S., 202 Victoria Terrace, Harrington Road,
Workington.
Inbrary Committee.
Rev. H. A. MAcPHERSON. R. CROWDER.
J. B. Battery. H. L. BARKER.
ADDRESSES OF HONORARY SECRETARIES OF
THE SEVERAL SOCIETIES.
Keswick ... ... J. Broatcu, Esq., Keswick.
Maryport .., .. J. T. Symuyeron, Esq., Fleming Square, Maryport.
Longtown ... ... (Vacant. )
Carlisle os ... J. Srycrarr, Esq., 6 Hawick Street, Carlisle.
Ambleside ... ... J. Bentiry, Esq., Ambleside.
Silloth es ... H. L. Barker, Esq., Sunnyside, Silloth.
Bramptor ... ... Isaac B. Hopason, Esq., Brampton.
Penrith eas ... E. H. Keep, Esq., Penrith.
Col. W. C. MacDovucatt.
Windermere F, Barron, Esq., 8 Biskey Howe Terr., Windermere,
Geology
Meteorology
Archeology ...
Geology
Botany
Entomology ..
Botany
Entomology ...
Geology
Icthyology
Ornithology
LOCAL SUB-COMMITTEES.
eee
Keswick.
Mr. PostLeTHwarTE, F.G.S.
ww Mr, J. F. Crostawaitz, F,S,A.
MARYPORT.
Mr. J. B. Bartey, Mr. T. Canny, Mr. J. CuARk.
CARLISLE.
Mr. H. Bumsy.
Mr. R. H, Hamriron.
Mr. Swarnston, Mr, Hoimes,
Mr. T. DuckwortH, Dr. Cartyir, Rev. R. Woop.
Mr. Eaters, Mr. Postaatr, Rev. O. P. CAMBRIDGE.
Mr. D. Burns, Mr. R. Crowpsr, M.A.
Rev. H. A. Macpurrson, Mr. J. N. Rostyson,
Rev.
Mr. W. Nicuot, Mr. H. LEvErs,
H. A. Macryerson, Mr. T. Duckworts,
Mr. J. N. Rozpryson, Mr. G. Dawson,
xi,
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xii.
ASSOCIATION MEMBERS.
(RULES 2 & 11,)
Life Members.
The EARL oF CARLISLE, Naworth Castle, Carlisle.
The CounTESS OF CARLISLE, Naworth Castle, Carlisle.
The Ricur Rev. THE BISHOP OF Barrow-1n-Furness, The Abbey, Carlisle.
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Rev. Dr. TroutBeck, Dean’s Yard, Westminster.
Dr. M. W. Taytor, F.S.A., 202 Harl’s Court Road, London.
Dr. Tirri, The Limes, Wigton.
Major VarTy, Stagstones, Penrith.
R. J. WuirweEtt, Hsq., Airethwaite, Kendal.
Rev. H. WuirrHead, Lanercost.
T. Carzy, Esq., Curzon Street, Maryport,
1.
7,
R
F
Re
1
xiii,
Heports trom the Associated Societies, |
KESWICK LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. SOCIETY.
23RD SESSION, 1891-92.
~ President a a 35 PP sé .. QT. Carrick
Vice-President ae ve a is Dr. C. Gorz Rine
Hon. Secretary az ane id me .. J. BROATCH
Treasurer... ao roe », Back Nos. ... en le TOO.
Arrs. Capitation,14 Members 0 7 oO
Authors’ copies... Hee eh. (Oro
Interest — ... fet Peni One Gras
£87 16 9
ASSETS.
Balance in hand ... ie AIO 2
Arrears—
Transactions, XV. & XVI. 3 18 o
Capitation on 83 Members 2 I 6
Authors’ Papers .. ead tan) @ urciee}
Estimated Balance £17 12 I0
PAYMENTS,
Assoc. Lecturer, 7 Lectures £24 6 0
Postages—
Editor Oo. 9 6
Librarian OF 216
Hon. Secs. I Ig 6
—— 29 6
Carriage é o 6 10
Cheque Book o 2 0
Back Nos. of Transactions,
Nos. 4 and 5 Ps :
Messrs. Griffin, Year Book
Mr R. Adair, "Stationery . ws
University Exten. Lectures
Messrs. Coward—
lo omome)
=
HD DW nu
ONn00
Printing 720 copies Pt. XVI 29 16 4
Sewing 700 39 oO
Authors’ copies 315 2
Exs. Annual Meeting, 1891 I i173
es 1892 I 16 o
Postages and Carriage 013 *I
Circulars, &c. .. I 13 0
Balance in hand Sep. 3°, "92 Io 2 I
£87 16 9
LIABILITIES.
(Nil.)
Audited and found correct,
J. HODGSON.
Lumbertand gWivtincland . $6 lhoodohitt, 1641
bi
d
i
DF ¢ j
Plutonic aveks
of
\
Dat & Rosate.
PLATE, I.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEW RED SERIES
OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND, WITH ©
ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO CLASSIFICATION.
j (Read at the Penrith Annual Meeting of the Cumberland and Westmorland
oe Association in Fune, 1892, and at the Edinburgh Meeting of the British °
‘ Association in August of the same year. )
By J. G. GOODCHILD, H.M. Grou. Survey, F.G.S., ©
Lecturer on Geology and Palzontology at the Heriot-Watt Collese
Local Development.
Discordance in Cumberland and Westmorland between the: Bunter
Marts and the Strata below.
Dyas or Lower New Red, and Permian, each used in a aleei
SENSE,
Paleontological Aspect of the Subject.
General Hitstory of the New Red Series in Cumberland and West.
morland.
Changes of Subsequent Date.
Some Papers on the New Red Series.
‘Table of Lithological Characters and Thicknesses of the New Red
Series in Cumberland and Westmorland.
Figure 2, Comparative Sections of English New Red Series,
H ( 1 UJ ok SPAS: or ; BetiCz
5 F
(Sete
Keupet
\
7 y Wik i > LE Te sae
i ity es fdas 4 \- . LUDLOW | “
Bunter ' i Ken 5 r Ss YoREOALE
i : d SE\Ge . Se, : ; pe Rocks
‘ a °
Bower Neu Rat WW ay bY — \ AGE = bee Ce
\ ean : {> - = :
tbppor Caslon* : ee
Youoale Rocko
.
Yotcamie toclee
| SKiada SlaTeo’ _
Lower duto
Veutorric rocks
Dat & Rosall.
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Stukde-malp af the, Geoloqe, of Cumberland “Wetland . $66 rcdohie, 104)
PLATE: I.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEW RED SERIES
OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND, WITH -
ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO CLASSIFICATION.
(Read at the Penrith Annual Meeting of the Cumberland and Westmorland
Association in Fune, 1892, and at the Edinburgh Meeting of the British °
Association in August of the same year.)
By J. G. GOODCHILD, H.M. Grou. Survey, F.G.S.,
Lecturer on Geology and Palzeontology at the Heriot-Watt College.
CONTENTS.
Figure 1, Sketch Map of the Geology of Cumberland and Westmorland.
Introductory Remarks.
Generalised Succession of British New Red Series.
_ History of Opinions upon the Classification of the Cumberland Wee
fed.
: _ Reasons for adopting the present Classification.
Local Development.
Discordance in Cumberland and Westmorland between he Bunter
Marls and the Strata below.
Dyas or Lower New Red, and Permian, each used in a restricted
SENSE,
Paleontological tspats of the Subject.
General History of the New Red Series in Cumberland and West-
morianda,
Changes of Subsequent Date.
Some Papers on the New Red Series.
Table of Lithological Characters and Thicknesses of the New Red
Series in Cumberland and Westmorland.
Figure 2, Comparative Sections of English New Red Series,
; 1 ria. teen
2
Ir will be seen from an inspection of the accompanying map
(pl. 1) that the Red Rocks of Cumberland and Westmorland
occur chiefly in the lowlands on the margin of the Lake District.
The largest area borders the River Eden, and its estuary the
Solway ; another smaller remnant occurs in maritime West Cum-
berland ; while to the south of the Lake District occur a few small
patches, left here and there in the low grounds. In each district
referred to the dip of these rocks is outward from the Lake District
uplands, and the angle of inclination is, almost without exception,
greater than the general rise of the slope behind them. These
marginal fragments may, therefore, be regarded as the remains of
an irregular dome, whose more-elevated central parts have been
removed by denudation.
The two best-known members of the series are—(1) the Penrith
Sandstone, which occurs below the horizon of the Magnesian
Limestone, and (2) the St. Bees Sandstone, which lies above it.
The very existence here of any other members of the series appears
to be quite unknown to many geologists. The highest beds of the
New Red Series in this part of England occur in association with
the Lias outlier preserved along a W.S.W. synclinal a short distance
to the west of Carlisle. The general relationship of the strata in
this neighbourhood has been ably described by my friend and
former colleague, Mr. T. V. Holmes (Q.J.G.S., and Proc. Geol.
Association), who mapped the neighbourhood of Carlisle for the
Geological Survey. (It is right to mention that Mr. Holmes does
not yet see his way to accepting some of the interpretations of his
work published by the Survey, and embodied in this paper).
Another zone of beds high in the series occurs_on the north-east
side of the Eden, close to the Outer Pennine Fault, between
Ousby and Castle Carrock. In the present connection, as will be
shewn below, this zone is of considerable stratigraphical importance.
Hitherto it has not been noticed in any publication. A third
remnant, equally important in some respects, occurs in the
Furness District, where the highest sandstones (St. Bees Sand-
stones) have been proved by borings to be of great thickness, and
3
have lately been shewn to pass beneath saliferous marls, as they
do west of Carlisle.
In regard to the general stratigraphical relations of the New Red
Series in the North-west of England, the following points may be
conveniently noticed at this stage:—Their highest zones occur
immediately below the Lias (or the Rheetics, if present at all); their
lowest beds, which may be on any horizon within the series, lie
indifferently upon the highest, the lowest, or any intermediate
member of the Paleozoic rocks ; from which they are, therefore,
separated by a vast unconformity; while within the New Red
Series itself there locally occurs a Magnesian Limestone Series,
more than a hundred and fifty feet in thickness where it is most
fully developed, as it is in eastern Westmorland. Part of the Mag-
nesian Limestone Series includes some fossiliferous strata (the
Helton Plant Beds), whose fossils and whose lithological characters
both warrant us in correlating these Plant Beds and their associated
Magnesian Limestone with the Magnesian Limestone and the
Marl Slate of Durham; and, therefore, with the Zechstein of
Germany. Some other evidence bearing upon the age of the
uppermost beds of the New Red Series willbe given further on.
But, upon these points so far noted, geologists are unanimously
agreed :—the highest beds belong to the Trias or Upper New Red;
the fossiliferous zones, locally present lower down, are on the
horizon of the Magnesian Limestone; while the basement beds
of the Series (which may belong to any horizon) lie upon the
upturned ends of the older rocks, and are separated from even the
highest of the Coal Measures (such as those remaining at Argill,*
at the foot of Stainmoor) by an hiatus of enormous extent.
In the present paper the whole of the British Red Rocks are
treated as one geological series, and, in accordance with that view,
the following generalized table based upon the chief sections yet
known, has been drawn up. The numbers employed correspond
to those used in the table of sections given on pl. 2, and are used
merely for convenience of reference here, and are not, of course,
proposed as substitutes for names already in use.
* ©€On the Former Extension of Coal Measures over Edenside.” J.G.G.—
Transactions Cumberland and Westmorland Association,
GENERALISED SUCCESSION OF THE NEW RED SERIES,
Jurassic Rocks.
Rheetics.
New Red.
Upper Division.
5. Red marls or shales with some beds of flagstone, more or
less gypsum and rock salt, and occasional bands of mag-
nesian limestone.
4. A thick sandstone series, with a prevalent red tint ; pebbly
in its middle parts in many localities, and usually more or
less variegated in colouration nearer its base. Volcanic
rocks locally occur in the higher parts of this section.
3. A lower marl or shale group, locally containing some gypsum
and occasionally also some rock salt.
Lower Division.
2. A magnesian limestone series, largely of chemical origin,
and therefore subject to rapid variations in thickness
within short distances. It is almost as often absent as
present. m
1. An extremely variable group of red sandstones, breccias, and
conglomerates, generally most fully developed in the larger
depressions of the old surface.
Great unconformity, chronologically equivalent to at least the
time required for the denudation of 12,000 feet of the older rocks.
Of the foregoing series the higher members naturally extend
over the wider area, as the upper beds overlap the lower. ‘This
happens partly in consequence of the somewhat irregular form of
the surface upon which these. rocks were deposited ; but, in the
majority of cases, more in consequence of those irregularities of
subsidence which appear to have been, everywhere, characteristic
of the conditions under which all red rocks have been accumulated.
It should, furthermore, be noted, that whereas the lower group (1)
of the section, is usually conglomeratic, yet the conditions that
gave rise to these conglomerates and breccias did not cease with
the formation of the lowest group, but were continued, wherever
———— ee ee eS
5
shore conditions prevailed, right up to Jurassic times. So the
dolomitic conglomerate of the Bristol district may be the chrono-
logical equivalent of any part of 4 or 5, or may even be of later
date ; while in the Devonshire area, and again in Westmorland,
and elsewhere, a rock absolutely undistinguishable from it can be
shown to be of much older date. It is merely a question of local
conditions, and tells us nothing more than that the rock is of age
later than the Carboniferous and older than the Rheetic rocks.
The diagram on Plate 2 will serve to. shew how a dolomitic conglom-
erate may be at one part contemporaneous with the Magnesian
Limestone, at another with the very topmost beds, or may belong
to any other horizon. As a matter of fact this is what actually
happens at many places in both Cumberland and Westmorland.
HISTORY OF OPINIONS UPON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE
CUMBERLAND NEW RED SERIES.
If a competent observer were studying the Red Rocks of Cum-
berland without allowing -himself to be influenced by preconceived
notions, he would almost certainly come to the conclusion that
they formed one continuous series, which he would unhesitatingly
refer to the Trias, if the order of his examination of the rocks
happened to be from the highest strata downwards, and were con-
fined to areas where the Magnesian Limestone was not seen. He
would find abundant justification for this view in the fact that the
sandstones denoted by the figure 1 in the sections here given (that
is to say the Penrith Sandstone) afford a considerable variety of
foot-prints of air-breathing vertebrates—probably those of Laby-
rinthodontia, their allies the Anomodontia, and many kangeroo-like
saurians as well. Moreover, the Penrith Sandstone, lithologically,
is wonderfully like some parts of the Trias.
If, on the other hand, his examination happened to be made
where the Magnesian Limestone is in force, as it is between
Appleby and Kirkby Stephen, then, failing to discover any signs
of a break above that well-marked datum, he would be equally
ready to class all he saw there as Permian. As it happens that the »
upper beds are wanting all over the part where the Magnesian
6
Limestone occurs, there would be nothing to prove, in that case,
that this view was not the correct one. As a matter of fact, this is
what geologists have actually done. First, the whole series (together
with a large area of red-stained Carboniferous rocks) was classed
with the New Red. Later on, Phillips and Sedgwick referred the
strata above the Magnesian Limestone to the Trias, leaving all
below (still with some red-stained Carboniferous rocks) as Permian.
Then, when the notion gained credence that the Trias and the
Permian must be separated by an unconformity, another change
was made, and the St. Bees Sandstone (2,000 feet in thickness, as
we now know) was put back into the Permian, for no other reason
than that no unconformity was visible between this thick mass of
sandstone and the beds below. Years afterwards came the detailed
examination of the rocks by the Geological Survey, in the course of
which facts came to light which seemed to warrant a return to the
older classification. These facts the Director General of the Survey
fully considered, and, after giving the matter ample consideration,
he decided to go back to the older classification, and again to
group all the beds above the horizon of the Magnesian Limestone
with the Upper New Red or Trias. This has accordingly been
done upon all the one-inch maps published since ; and the classi-
fication of the Cumberland Red Rocks is now adapted, not only
to the facts observable within the district, but is brought into har-
mony with the classification generally adopted outside of that area.
REASONS FOR THE CLASSIFICATION ADOPTED BY THE GEOLOGICAL
SURVEY.
As the newer view has been objected to by a few persons
(although it has been accepted by those fully acquainted with the
rocks in question) it may be well to go over the facts in somewhat
fuller detail in order that the reasons for the course adopted may
be understood by those who are interested in questions of this
kind.
Beginning at the top beds, we find the Lias occurring as a small
.outlier in the area west of Carlisle. Judging by the facts observed
elsewhere, the rocks we should expect to meet with next below the
‘
,
;
7
Lias would be the Rheetics ; and below these, if any Red Rocks
are present at all, should occur the Keuper Marls. ‘To this general
rule no exception has yet been proved in Britain. Little surprise
was felt, therefore, when a borehole put down at Abbey ‘Town west
of the Lias outlier passed through several hundred feet of Red
Marls identical in character with the Keuper Marls, and containing
both gypsum and rock salt, At the bottom of the bore hole sand-
stone exactly like that of the upper part of the St. Bees Sandstone
was reached, ‘These sandstone beds, allowing water to percolate
through them pretty freely, gave rise to an artesian spring, which
at first rose through the Keuper Marls fresh and sweet, but which
became very saline on its passage to the surface through the beds
of salt. Around Carlisle itself the very lowest beds of the Keuper
Marls* still remain, and these are seen to overlie in several places
a group of sandstones whose colour ranges from tile red, through
saffron, to nearly white. Near the top these sandstones are locally
full of small cavities, resembling those formed by gas bubbles, and
in several other respects the zone where these occur forcibly recalls
the Waterstones of Cheshire, which occupy the same relative posi-
tion in the Red Rocks of that part of England. The general aspect
of the sandstones below again reminds one of the higher beds of
the Trias in the basin of the Mersey, and the resemblance is further
borne out by the tendency of these Carlisle, or Kirklinton, Sand-
stones to rapid changes of colour within short distances. On the
River Lyne, at Westlinton, beds of Kirklinton Sandstone, or of
strata undistinguishable from that rock, are seen interbedded with
Sandstone of the normal type seen at St. Bees Head, in such a
manner as to suggest that no hard and fast line between them has
any existence, Putting this statement into another form, it may
be said that the highest beds of the St. Bees Sandstone present
bright red phases in many localities, and that these tile red strata
are subject to rapid local changes to brick-red, ochreous, or even to
white.
Now the Kirklinton Sandstone has been unanimously recognized
* My friend, Mr Holmes, who mapped the Carlisle district does not yet see”
his way to accept this view, which is that adopted by the Geological Survey,
8
by geologists as of Triassic age ; so the question we have now to
consider is, seeing that the Magnesian Limestone occurs at some
distance below, where is the line to be drawn between these
admittedly Triassic strata and those lower down, which are univers-
ally recognized as Dyas, Lower New Red, or Permian. The
question, theoretically, is one of importance, because, what we are
in search of is, according to old beliefs, not merely a conventional
line between one sandstone group and another, but “the great
dividing line between the Paleeozoic rocks and those of Secondary
Age.” We shall not find it within the Red Rocks at all, here, or
anywhere else. We may find it at the base of the Red Rocks, but
it is vain to seek for it in the midst of a virtually continuous series
of deposits, formed, from base to summit, under one set of
conditions.
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT.
Those who have studied the Cumberland Red Rocks, have
apparently seen only part of the evidence. Around Carlisle we
meet with the uppermost strata, but in tracing the beds outward
from the synclinal axis we do not get more than a few hundred
feet down in the St. Bees Sandstone, as we trace the rocks south-
ward, before we come upon a large fault. (See the map, pl. 1.)
This fault ranges from Castle Carrock past the south of Carlisle,
to the sea just north of Maryport. It is herein referred to as the
Maryport Fault. The fault has a considerable throw on the north
side, perhaps as much as a thousand feet, or rather more, near
Carlisle, but lessening as it trends westward. The lowest beds of
the St. Bees Sandstone exposed north of the Maryport fault, locally
contain a few scattered pebbles of quartzite and quartz, here one
and there one, much as they occur in the “ Pebble Beds” of the
Bunter Sandstone in the basin of the Mersey. But they are there
nevertheless, and in. both areas their presence is not without
significance.
- But few geologists appear to have studied the St. Bees Sandstone
for many miles south of the fault ; those who have done so must
be aware of the fact that along a wide zone. ranging parallel with
SEE aS
9
the Outer Pennine Fault, there exists one or two synclinals within
which have been preserved the highest strata belonging to the New
Red Series occurring on the Appleby side of the Maryport Fault
These highest beds are well seen here and there between Ousby
and Castle Carrock, and are especially well displayed in the higher
parts of Ravenbeck, at Renwick. (See map, pl. 1.) They con-
sist of bright tile red sandstones, which tend to pass within short
distances, into dull red, ochreous, or white, sandstones. No one
fresh from the study of the Kirklinton Sandstones could fail to be
struck by the closeness of the resemblance between the two—a
resemblance in fact, which amounts, in my mind, to absolute
identity. From these highest zones of bright red colour, the down-
ward succession can be traced in Ravenbeck almost without a
‘ break, for well on to two thousand feet. In the higher part of the
stream, around Renwick, Kirklinton Sandstone (as I shall name
that local development of it) is seen to graduate downward into
typical St. Bees Sandstone. Bed after bed of this rises as the
exposure is followed westward, until we reach the horizon of the
highest beds left at St. Bees Head. Then, as the traverse is con-
tinued some distance further in the same direction, the sandstones
begin to graduate into flagstones, the flagstones begin to be inter-
bedded with shales, and finally the whole sandstone group graduates
imperceptibly downward into a series of red marls or shales, from
the lower beds of which the gypsum, so extensively wrought in that
neighbourhood, is obtained. The thickness of the shale may be
estimated at about three hundred feet. Here, and in this neigh-
bourhood, generally, these gypsiferous marls lie directly upon the
Penrith Sandstone—the Magnesian Limestone Series, which occurs
in the areas to the west, and again to the south-east, being here
entirely absent.
The section at Raven Beck is typical for the neighbourhood.
What we learn from a study of it is this: the St. Bees Sandstone
and the marls at its base form the natural downward continuation
of the bright tile-red sandstones seen at Renwick. These tile-red
sandstones must belong to an horizon either at the top of the
St. Bees Sandstone, or else must be very near it. If they are not
10
the equivalents of the Kirklinton Sandstone, then they must be
lower down still, and the total thickness of the sandstone series to
which the St. Bees Sandstone belongs must be equivalent to the
thickness seen in Raven Beck plus the thickness seen between the
highest of the sandstones appearing at Carlisle and the lowest seen
next to the Maryport fault. But there is no proof anywhere of
bright red phases occurring on more than one horizon, and that
horizon is invariably near the top. Therefore the balance of
evidence is in favour of the Renwick Sandstone and the Kirklinton
Sandstone being one and the same. The Kirklinton Sandstone is
universally regarded as of Triassic age; therefore, any rock that
can be shewn to form the downward continuation of the Kirklinton
Sandstone, should be regarded as of Triassic age also, if field
evidence is to be counted as worth anything at all.
Ravenbeck is almost the only section where the whole of the
St. Bees Sandstone can be seen. In the section at Helton the
those next the Pennine Fault, at the
very highest beds exposed
Smelt Mill—are not quite half way up in these rocks, the higher
beds once present there having been removed by denudation.
The same remark applies to the sandstones at St. Bees Head ; yet,
strangely enough, it has often been assumed that the highest beds
remaining at both these localities represent the uppermost of the
group. The fact is that the full thickness of the St. Bees Sand-
stone, instead of being 700 feet, as stated again and again in text
books, is 2000 feet, which, added on to the 300 feet of shales
below, gives 2300 feet as the aggregate thickness in round num-
bers of the beds between the. Keuper Marls and the Magnesian
Limestone.
Hitherto the name St. Bees Sandstone has been used for only
the lower sandstones of this series ; but, having regard to the fact
that rocks of exactly the same type occur on a much higher
horizon, and graduate upwards into rocks of the Kirklinton Sand-
stone type, it seems to me that it would simplify geological
nomenclature very much if we were to group the whole of these
sandstones, from the marls at the base to the Keuper Marls above,
as Bunter Sandstone, and to call the lower gypsiferous marls
11
beneath the Sandstones by the anglicised name Bunter Marls,
seeing that they correspond in both lithological character and
geological position to the Bunter Schiefer of Germany.
Against the employment of the name Bunter for this group at
all, it may be urged that the characteristic feature whence the
name Bunter was derived has not been referred to. That is true,
for the St. Bees Sandstone in Ravenbeck is tolerably uniform in
character so far as colour is concerned; but in the areas to the
south of that, as for example, around Langwathby,” the variegated
character of the lower beds of the St. Bees Sandstone is so strongly
marked a feature that many large quarries of otherwise-good
building stone are rendered almost valueless on account of the
extensive discolouration blotches by which so much of the stone is
disfigured. Travellers to Carlisle by the Midland Railway may
see numerous examples of this feature, even without leaving the
train. It is not a little significant that this variegation should be
most pronounced on the very horizon where the Lower Mottled
might be expected to occur, on the assumption that we are dealing
with the Bunter Sandstone.
LOCAL DISCORDANCE BETWEEN THE BUNTER MARLS
AND THE STRATA BELOW.
The next point to consider is the relation of the Bunter Marls
to the beds below. On account of the occurrence of gypsum on
various horizons near the base of the Bunter Marls sections have
been exposed, in one locality or another, on many occasions. In
addition to these there are some few natural exposures shewing
the junction of the Bunter Marls with the beds below. These
may now be noticed in detail. In the River Eden at Kirkby
Stephen the Marls lie directly upon the Brockram; at Hartley,
within a mile of the last locality, a remnant of the Plant Beds
- occurs below them. ‘Two miles further north, in the River Bela,
the Magnesian Limestone is well developed, being fully twenty
feet in thickness, and of typical character. The Plant Beds
are also well developed in this section, being nearly eighty
* More generally known by its old name Langanby.
12
feet in total thickness. To the north-west of the Bela section,
the Marls repose, sometimes on one horizon of the Magnesian
Limestone series, sometimes upon another; or they may lie
upon any part of the Plant Beds. In the Midland Railway cutting,
a few hundred yards on the Appleby side of Newbiggin station,
the Marls were seen to lie with a sharp junction across the edges
of the Plant Beds, which had evidently undergone a certain
amount of erosion before the newer strata were laid down upon
them. Again, in the gypsum quarries at Kirkby Thore the marls
lie in some parts upon a remnant of the Plant Beds, while in other
parts of the same workings the Plant Beds, as well, of course, as
the Magnesian Limestone, are absent, and the Marls he directly
upon the Penrith Sandstone. Facts of much the same kind are
observable in West Cumberland.
Now, if we were dealing, in this connection, with the relation of
the upper beds to the Magnesian Limestone alone, a very obvious
explanation of the facts would be that, the Magnesian Limestone,
being a deposit more or less of a chemical origin, might be expected
to be variable in regard to thickness—its absence at any given spot
being simply due to its never having been deposited there. But
with the Plant Beds the case is different. These consist of alter-
nations of fine-grained sandstones of a prevalent ochreous tint, and
usually more or less dolomitic in composition, with grey clays,
reddish clays and shales, beds of lignite, here and there a film of
veritable coal, and thin seams of argillaceous, arenaceous, or
bituminous dolomite. The plant remains, such as they are, occur
chiefly in the sandstones, where, doubtless, their preservation
is due to the conditions of lesser salinity that prevailed when these
rocks were formed. ‘They consist of carbonized fragments of
drifted vegetation, hardly ever in a sufficiently good state of
preservation to be identified. The Plant Beds are therefore un-
mistakeably of sedimentary origin, and their general aspect would
lead one to expect that they had been laid down with comparative
uniformity over large areas. The absence of true sedimentary
beds such as the Plant Beds at any given spot below the Bunter
Marls may therefore be taken as good evidence of their removal
a Oe ee a ——— ee eee
13
subsequent to deposition. The phenomena are perhaps not quite
of such a nature as would justify one in regarding as an uncon-
formity. But there cannot be any doubt that we have in this a
clear case of the kind of erosion that might be expected to result
from an abrupt change of physical conditions, such as that denoted
by the difference of character between the Magnesian Limestone
Series and the Bunter Marls above. It has already been remarked
that the discordancy between the Bunter Marls and the older
strata is by no means confined to the neighbourhood of the River
Eden and the district adjoining, but is equally well marked in the
Whitehaven district, and elsewhere.
The evidence does not end with this. At the base of the
Bunter Marls at several places in the basin of the Eden there
occurs a band of conglomerate containing pebbles of quartz and
quartzite, and, occasionally, fragments of brockram. This may
not mean very much; but taken in conjunction with the evidence
of erosion just referred to, it indicates the horizon on which the
line we are seeking is most likely to be found.
Mr. Howell has shown pretty conclusively that, in the north-east
of England there is much the same kind of evidence of discordance
between the saliferous marls (which there occupy the same relative
position as the gypsiferous Bunter Marls of Cumberland) and the
Magnesian Limestone (see the section on pl. 2) as there is in the
district under notice. We may therefore conclude that these
conditions changed simultaneously over a large area, and we are
consequently fully justified in reckoning the evidence afforded by
the results as of some value in the present connection.
If then, we really must continue to draw a hard line on any
horizon through the New Red Series, the position of that line in
Cumberland and Westmorland ought no longer to be a matter of
doubt. There is a continuous downward succession from the
Keuper Marls through the St. Bees Sandstone to the base of the
Bunter Marls beneath. There is a continuous upward succession
from the base of the lowest Brockram to the highest remaining
beds of the Magnesian Limestone Series. On the other hand, the
14
Bunter Marls lie indifferently upon any one member of the series
below, and at their base there is often a bed of conglomerate.
Here then, and here alone, can any such line be drawn between
the Upper part of the Series and the Lower. If any other geolo-
gist, after a full and careful consideration of the facts seen on the
ground, is able on stratigraphical grounds to indicate any horizon
where a better line can be drawn, he would be doing good service
to geological science by pointing out that horizon as soon as
convenient to himself. I have sought such an horizon for years
under all the advantages afforded by working on the Geological
Survey, but have never found it. It may as well be mentioned
also that no one else has been able to do so either ; for those who
look into the literature of the subject will see that since the
St. Bees Sandstone was referred to the “Upper Permian,” geologists
seem to have tacitly agreed amongst themselves never even to
make an attempt at drawing a base line for the Trias in Cumber-
land. ‘
If, on the other hand, we agree to take all the beds above the
horizon of the Magnesian Limestone as Trias, as Sir Archibald
Geikie has decided to do, then we all know where to find the line
between the Upper New Red and the Lower, and we not only
simplify the classification very greatly, but we bring the grouping
of the whole of the true New Red Series into harmony all over
the kingdom.
DYAS OR LOWER NEW RED, AND PERMIAN, USED IN A
RESTRICTED SENSE.
A change of views of the nature here indicated is sure to meet
with opposition from many, especially as it involves a somewhat
important change in classification. There have not been wanting
instances, therefore, of geologists who are anxious to place it on
record that, in the year 1892, they still clung to the beliefs of their
fathers so far as the classification of the Red Rocks is concerned,
and who still also persist in grouping the Permian with the Car-
boniferous, and in widely separating the group so united from the
Trias, The reasons for doing so are twofold. First, and most
15
important of all: an examinee knows only too well that his
examiner would most likely “pluck” him if he dared to express a
contrary view ; secondly, the rocks that have been called Permian
in Staffordshire and the areas adjacent are, undoubtedly, connected
most intimately with the Carboniferous rocks, and lie below the
Upper New Red or Trias unconformably. Upon these latter
points no one who has examined the sections can entertain any
doubt. But whether these red rocks below the Trias are the
equivalents in time of the beds that form the downward con-
tinuation of the Magnesian Limestone near Manchester or in
Cumberland, is very doubtful indeed. There is a vast hiatus in
_ the north-west of England between the true New Red Series and
the Carboniferous Rocks, which must be represented, somewhere,
by rocks of intermediate age; just as the equally-large unconformity
in Westmorland between the Upper Old Red Sandstone and the
Ludlow Rocks is elsewhere partly filled in by the Glengariff Grits.
These Shropshire and Staffordshire Permians may well be partly
uppermost Coal Measures, stained by infiltration from the true
New Red, and partly a conformable series newer than these, but
much older than any part of the New Red Series proper. That at
all events, is what they appear to be to many others than myself.
It would be well if the term Permian were restricted to rocks of
this Salopian type, as it appears to be on the continent. This
would enable us to employ the name Dyas or Lower New Red for
the later-formed rocks, and we could then, consistently, draw the
line between the Paleozoic rocks and those of Neozoic age at the
top of the Permian as thus restricted, instead of taking it on an
arbitrary horizon through the middle of an unbroken series of New
Red Rocks.
PALHONTOLOGICAL ASPECT OF THE SUBJECT.
Asregardsthe bearing of palzeontological evidenceupon the general
questions here raise], it seems to me that considerable misunder-
standing yet exists. In regard to the plant remains, for example,
it does not appear to be generally known that a large number of
the vegetable remains supposed to have been obtained from rocks
16
of Lower New Red age, have really come {from Carboniferous
rocks stained red by ferruginous infiltrations derived from the
New Red which covered these rocks at no very remote period.
The Carboniferous facies of such fossils counts, therefore, for
nothing at all in the present connection. On the other hand, the
vegetable remains occurring in rocks of indubitable New Red age,
like those of the Marl Slate and the Plant Beds, present a facies
as distinctly Neozoic as do any that have been recorded from the
Upper New Red.
As regards the vertebrate fauna, I understand from Dr. Traquair,
whose authority in such matters no one will question, that some,
at least, of the fish remains from the Magnesian Limestone are of
Neozoic types. The footprints of air-breathing vertebrates, again, —
whose vestiges occur in such variety in the Lower New Red
(Penrith Sandstone), cannot be distinguished from those discovered
in the Upper New Red or Trias. The general character of these
Penrith Sandstone footprints seems to indicate a comparatively
high grade of organization, Sauropsidan in many cases; and the
relatively small size of the impressions of the fore limbs as com-
pared with the hind, shews that we are dealing with vestiges of
Saurians whose locomotion was, already, chiefly effected by their
hind limbs. No one can study the interesting footprints collected
from the Penrith Sandstone of Edenhall by Mr. and Miss Smith
of Penrith, without being struck by this interesting feature. It is
many years ago that Conybeare, Agassiz, Phillips, Edward Forbes,
not to mention names of lesser note, expressed their belief that these
grades of evolution denote Neozoic rather than Paleozoic times.
The invertebrate fossils of the New Red Series come chiefly
from the Magnesian Limestone itself’ They belong, without
exception, to fersistent types, and their value as aids to chronology
is on a par with that of the paleeozoic types of invertebrata occur-
ring in the Hallstadt and St. Cassian Beds.
HISTORY OF THE RED ROCKS.
The oldest strata (Penrith Sandstone and the Brockrams) appear
to have been deposited in a large depression of the earth’s surface,
aS ee Ae
we
17
which had no communication with the sea, and which was main-
tained as a lake or series of lakes through subsidence of an
unusually local character. The earlier boundaries of the old lake
are not easy to define, probably for the reason that much of its
original margin covered areas that have since been elevated into
uplands, and the shore deposits have consequently been removed
therefrom. I fail entirely to discover any connection between the
present distribution of the uplands and the relief of the land at
the time when even the oldest of the strata were formed. The
Pennine Fault and the minor faults accompanying it had certainly
been formed, and the rocks had been extensively denuded after-
wards into a somewhat more irregular surface than is usual in such
cases; but I doubt very much whether there is now in existence a
single mountain, or even hill, which can be proved to have been
such when the Lower New Red was formed. (Geologists hardly
need to be reminded that anticlinals very rarely coincide with
elevations of the surface.) Judging by the distribution of the
deposits, a shallow trough ranged through the area known as
Stainmoor, and thence north-westward past Appleby, across the
Solway and up the present valley of the Nith. At the north-west
end the trough rapidly shallowed, while in the opposite direction
it reached its greatest depth near Appleby. The general litho-
logical character of the rocks deposited in this trough points to
shallow water and unusually saline conditions having obtained
within the basin throughout the whole period when the Lower
New Red was formed. This appears to indicate that a steady
downward folding of the surface was progressing along the line—
the areas adjoining probably undergoing concurrent upheaval, in
the same manner as that obtaining during the formation of the
Old Red Series in Scotland described by Sir Archibald Geikie.*
The rocks laid down in this basin consisted normally of quartz
sand, associated with a small percentage of kaolinized felspar.
But of mica in any form soever the Lower New Red as a rule
contains none. Nor does it as a rule contain any shales. The
sands are strongly false-bedded towards the west in general, and
* Proc. Roy. Soc, Edin,
2
18
that, too, overa very large area. The materials, therefore, must have
travelled from east to west, and the land lay, consequently, to the
east.’ Possibly the Carboniferous uplands at present intervening
between the eastern and the western outcrops of the Red Rocks
in the north of England may represent in a modified form part of
the land whence this material was derived. But the sand swept
into the lake by the old rivers flowing westward was not the only
material. Some, at least, of the limestone exposed by prior
denudation in the areas on the eastern border of Westmorland,
was transported by floating ice into the old lake in the form of
angular boulders, often of large size; and, as the ice melted, its
rocky burden was dropped promiscuously amongst the ordinary
sediments swept into the lake by the rivers. Now and then a
veritable glaciated boulder was dropped in this way. One such
was discovered during a visit to the Brockram at Appleby by the
Geologists’ Association in 1888. In connection with the Lower
New Red, another remarkable feature calls for notice. The
absence of remains of plants of any kind is almost as striking a
feature as that of animals. Possibly the explanation of this may
be that the waters of the old lake were so much saturated with
the sulphate of lime, that any vegetable remains swept into the
lake were rapidly decomposed. Such an explanation may serve
to account for the presence of bituminous matter in other strata
formed in closed bodies of water, such, for example, as the Caith-
ness Flags.* Certain it is that until we reach beds high up in the
Penrith Sandstone, plant remains, or other fossils of any kind are
quite unknown. There is, it is true, a bed of lignite near the very
top of the Penrith Sandstone two or three miles to the east of the
town of that name, but even here the exception proves the rule ;
for the general character of the upper beds of the Penrith Sand-
stone points to diminished salinity during this stage, as if a more
rapid lowering of the outlet of the lake had begun to sweeten the
waters. The sandstones cease to be prevalently red, mica begins
to appear, shales are interstratified with the sandstones, and finally,
*Itis possible that the Lothian Oil Shales derived their valuable organic
constituents from much the same kind of source, and in the same way.
19
the drifted remains of Walchia piniformis, Noeggerathia cuneifolia,
Ulimannia selaginoides, and other plants of Neozoic affinities, are
left, sometimes in sufficient quantity to,form thin seams of lignite
or of coal. Then came a still more rapid subsidence ; the sea
itself gained admittance, and, with it, came a few marine organisms,
modified successors of those living in the previous Carboniferous
times. But lagoon conditions speedily supervened, and precipi-
tations of dolomite ensued in consequence. In this way the
Magnesian Limestone Series was formed.
Then followed a marked change of conditions, which may,
possibly, have occupied considerable time. Mr. Howell has
shewn that, in the north-east of England, much of the Magnesian
Limestone there is missing beneath the strata next above; and the
same feature is noticeable, though in a lesser degree, in the area
specially under notice. Here, if anywhere in the series, is there
an indication of the break between the upper series and the lower.
A return to the old conditions of inland seas followed the
temporary marine conditions. Red shales, saturated with iron,
with carbonate of magnesia, with sulphate of lime, and, locally,
with rock salt, were spread out with considerable uniformity over
very large areas, their deposition being preceded by that of a band
of shingle. In these shales mica was deposited in abundance, in
which respect they differ from the beds below the Magnesian
Limestone Series. During the later part of their deposition
occasional sheets of micaceous sand were mingled with the sedi-
ment; and, as time went on, the relative quantity of sand increased,
until, eventually, the lake was shallowed up almost entirely,
and was only submerged completely during seasons of unusual
wetness. The sandstones thus presented all the characteristic
indications of deposits accumulated under shallow-water conditions.
In addition to the evidence effected by traces of suncracks, there
are shale galls, pseudomorphs of rock salt, numerous footprints of
air-breathing vertebrata (amphibio-reptilian) as well as the trails
left by various other animals.
It is evident that the physical conditions changed slightly now
and then, prevalent shallow-water conditions giving place occasion
20
ally to those of deeper water. But from the commencement of
the Bunter period to its close, conditions of excessive salinity
appear to have been the rule, to which, at present, no exceptions
have clearly been proved. Hence the almost entire absence from
this great sandstone series of traces of plant remains. Where they
do occur they will probably be found to agree generically with
those in the Lower New Red, or, at any rate, not to differ from
them more than the vegetable remains from the Millstone Grit do
from those obtained from the underlying Yoredale Rocks.
Mr. W. Brockbank has lately* recorded a find of vegetable
remains from near Helton, which he courteously allowed me to
examine. ‘They are correctly figured in the plates illustrating his
very interesting paper, and one cannot help regretting that the
fossils in question were not sufficiently definite to admit of their
identification, or, at least, of their being referred to one or other
of the Orders at present recognized by paleeobotanists. In the
hope of being able to obtain more satisfactory specimens, I paid a
visit in June, 1892, to the section indicated in Mr. Brockbank’s
paper ; but, although long familiar with every exposure of rock
near Helton, I was not fortunate enough to meet with any such
specimens after a long day’s search. I obtained some beautiful
dendrites of manganese, wonderfully like carbonised vegetable
impressions, and got, too, some shale-galls resembling s¢herza,
also some excellent specimens of suncracks, as well as of footprints,
so that the journey was not altogether wasted. Still, it is quite
worth while to keep a look out for true plant remains, and geolo-
gists will feel much indebted to Mr. Brockbank for calling attention
to this very interesting section. In this connection it may be well
to mention that Sir Roderick Murchison (Sz/uria, 4th Ed., p. 317)
informs us that in Russia the Bunter Marls and Sandstone there
overlying the Magnesian Limestone, contain ‘‘Plants and Protero-
sauri which are found to be identical with species from the
Roth-Liegende of Germany,” [which, no doubt, will prove to be
very generally the case elsewhere. |
After the formation of the St. Bees Sandstone, quiet and slow
* Trans. Man. Geol. Soc., 1892.
21
deposition in water averaging a greater depth, went on, and in this
the Keuper Marls, with their rock salt, gypsum, and dolomite were
deposited. Finally, the irregular subsidence, which served to
maintain lacustrine conditions throughout so long a period, gave
place to a uniform general depression of the surface over large
areas, the sea gained admittance and the marine deposits of the
Rheetic and the succeeding Jurassic period were spread out over
the great pile of lacustrine and lagoon strata, whose history is here
noticed.
LATER CHANGES.
I have repeatedly expressed an opinion that, at least the highest
members of the New Red Series were deposited continuously
over what are now the upland areas of Cumberland and Westmor-
land. Traces of the characteristic infiltrations derived from the
New Red occur abundantly all over the mountain tops. Carbon-
iferous sandstones are stained red and purple, the limestones are
irregularly dolomitized, and, in part, many of the calcareous
deposits are altered more or less into hematite. This replacement
of calcareous matter by hematite has affected not only limestone
strata, as at Cleator, but also veins of calcite, as at Knock Murton
and Kelton Fell, and even limestone fragments included in the
New Red breccias have been replaced by hematite by the same
agency. Such phenomena are distinctly traceable to the perco-
lation of water charged with magnesia, iron, etc., derived from the
New Red, and are found (as, for example, in Fife and the Lothians)
where the New Red strata have long been denuded away, just as
much as they are within a yard of their present outcrop.
The first upheaval throwing these New Red Rocks into domes
in Cumberland and Westmorland happened between the close of
the Jurassic period and the commencement of the Upper Cre-
taceous. About that time subaerial denudation had re-exposed
much of the New Red, which, however, was soon afterwards
submerged beneath the deep sea of Upper Cretaceous times, and
was buried for long ages beneath a pile of oceanic deposits.
Later upheavals, and subsequent denudations, commencing in
22
Oligocene times, and continued with some fewjintermissions since,
have brought the New Red Rocks again to the surface, and have
led to their taking the form of disconnected fragments of an
irregular dome which they exhibit in Cumberland and Westmor-
land at the present day.
Previous reference to some of the points noticed above will be
found in the papers by the“author on the “ Penrith Sandstone,”
“Professor Harkness,” “ Minerals of Cumberland and Westmor-
land,” ‘Physical History of Greystoke Park,” ‘History of the
River Eden,” Zzvans. Cumberland and Westmortand Association
“Woodward’s Geology of England and Wales,” and in the “Natural
History of Gypsum,” “Genesis of Metalliferous Deposits,” “Geology
of Edenside,” “Reports and Programmes of the Excursion of the
Geological Association to Edenside,” Proceedings of the Geol. Assoc.,
various dates. ‘Formation of Dolomite,” Proc. Geol. Soc. Edin.
In addition to the above there are lengthy newspaper reports of
field lectures on ‘“‘Corby Walks,” “The Town Geology of Penrith,”
“The River Ive,” ‘‘ Udford Crags,” “‘The Edenhall Springs,” and
** Geological Notes on Dufton,” also the article on the Geology of
Westmorland in Braithwaite’s Gude to Kirkby Stephen, and, lastly,
the article on ‘‘Westmorland” in the ycyclopedia Britannica,
last edition.
_In the following tabular statement are given the classification,
thickness, and general lithological characters of the Cumberland
and Westmorland New Red Series. The numerals are the same
as those used in the comparative sections on pl. 2.
C. Lias, and (?) Rhaetics.
B. New Red Series.
B3. Upper New Red.
Maximum observed thickness in feet :—
5. Keuper Marls of the country around Carlisle ; red marls
with rock salt, gypsum, subordinate flagstones, and, near
the base, thin beds of magnesian limestone ? + 950
a
TTT Ti one Ton
Fe een
atte ttt alte greta
INST LTD Rese a
Winget fs Mt]
Sevonshire
/
South Dunham iy
A)
Comparative beclions of the Neur Red Rocks.
iH yt |
|
t
!
West Wi
Hi!
|
S
S
=
45
\
PLATE Ii.
GxT.Cowarn, CARLISLE
23
4. St. Bees and Kirklinton Sandstones [Bunter Sandstone
Series]; sandstones mainly of a Venetian red colour,
interstratified with subordinate beds of red sandy shale
or marl. Muscovite flakes nearly always present, and
very little secondary quartz on the sandgrains. The
series admits of four sub-divisions :—(iv.) An uppermost
band of cellular rock [Waterstones]; (iii.) a zone along
which tile-red colours prevail, characteriaed by abrupt
changes of colouring within short distances [Kirklinton
Sandstone]; (ii.) Venetian-red sandstones with occasional
white bands and a local development of -fine con-
glomerate [Pebble Beds]; (i.) variegated zones [Lower
Mottled] graduating downward into the next subdivision
Total 2000
2. Gypsiferous marls [Bunter Marls]; chocolate and Ven-
etian-red shales, with subordinate micaceous flags, large
segregations of gypsum on various horizons in their
lower third. A band of conglomerate occurs locally at
the base, which reposes discordantly upon various mem-
bers of the lower series (2) and (1) - - - 300
Bz. Magnesian Limestone Series (fossiliferous).
24. Magnesian Limestone, an impure cellular dolomite,
variable in thickness - - - . - otorIo
2! Plant Beds; (Marl Slate) alternations of ochreous and
reddish sandstones, more or less dolomitic, with thin
bands of impure dolomite, some clays and shales, bands
of lignite, and occasional thin coals occur. Carbonized
remains of Accygerathia, Walchia, Ullmannia, and bracts
of cones, have been obtained from these beds. In the
Helton Section these beds may be as muchas - 150
ae —_——---
Bi, Lower New Red or Roth-todt-liegende (unfossiliferous).
tiv. Copper red sandstones, usually devoid of mica, and
generally containing much secondary quartz. Exhibits
footprints,
TS ——
ey. a
24
ri. Upper Brockram; breccias of angular fragments of
carboniferous rocks (occasionally glaciated) ; in which
the limestone fragments are converted into a more or
less ferruginous dolomite, or even into hzematite, while
the sandstones and quartzites are stained liver-coloured
or dull red.
ri Penrith Sandstone as 1‘v- but much more false-bedded,
and usually coarser grained (unfossiliferous).
1 Lower Brockram, as 1:
The maximum thickness near Appleby may be 1500
but its extreme variability and the excessive false-bedding
render any exact estimate almost impossible,
The Lower New Red at Kirkby Stephen consists almost entirely
of Brockram, and that but of small thickness; but as the beds trend
north-westward they thicken considerably, and become more and
more interwoven with red sandstones. North-west of Appleby the
brockrams give place to the almost-undivided mass of Penrith
Sandstone, which, at Penrith, is about a thousand feet in thickness.
At several places still further north, and again at St. Bees, and
generally at S.W. Cumberland, the Lower New Red is again very
feebly represented or is absent entirely.
On pl. 2 the correlation of these strata with others in different
parts of England is shewn. The sections are drawn on a uniform
scale, with the base of the Keuper Marls as a datum; and the
subdivisions throughout are denoted by the same figures.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
THE WRITERS OF ENGLISH FICTION IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
By W. C. GULLY, Q.C., M.P.
(Delivered at the Penrith Annual Meeting.)
I HAVE never seen a list of the names of those whom the Cum-
berland and Westmorland Literary and Scientific Association
has heretofore honoured by electing them to the chair of the
Presidency, but I have an abiding fear that it has never selected
for that honourable office one who was quite so unfitted for it as
Iam. Atleast I am quite sure it has never chosen anyone who
was more penetrated with the sense of his deficiences. Of Science,
properly so called, I know nothing except such hastily acquired
and rapidly forgotten smatterings as I have had occasion to learn
in the course of my profession; and. of Literature, though I
profess myself to be a sincere, and in my younger and more
leisured days, a fairly diligent worshipper, I have no pretensions
to be a priest. There is, however, one distinction between
Literature and Science which recalls to my mind some of the
incursions which I made in my undergraduate days into the
region of that so-called Science, Moral Philosophy, where I made
acquaintance with Plato’s doctrine—that of every corporal thing
and mental conception there is some absolutely true and
beautiful form which is objectively excellent and perfect.
Well, so far as Science is concerned, we must all admit, that its
results, once arrived at, are irrefragable, and independent of the
26
opinions of its votaries. But, in the case of Literature, I am not
at all prepared to admit that we make any progress towards the
absolutely perfect, or towards the knowledge of what the absolutely
perfect is. Our forms of literary instruction or amusement change
from generation to generation, much as the fashions of our dress
change, and we have no standard by which to test them, except
our own opinion, which will probably be condemned by the
opinion of a succeeding age.
Perhaps you will think this is not an altogether superfluous
preamble, when I tell you that I propose to take for the subject
of my address, ‘‘The Writers of English Fiction in the Eighteenth
Century,” for it has been the fashion of the nineteenth century,
now itself tottering into its grave, to look down with some
contempt on its immediate predecessor and all his works.
This is not the occasion to pronounce either the apology or the
eulogy of the eighteenth century, but this at least may be truly and
briefly said of it, that though it has never been charged with
enthusiasm, its close- was marked by the greatest upheaval of
social and political ideas which modern history has seen ; and that
though it has never been justly accused of imagination, it gave us
the Novel.
In dealing with English Fiction, we need not go back more
than one hundred and fifty years. A hundred years earlier, in the
time of the Commonwealth, we find Miss Dorothy Osborne, one
of the cleverest young ladies of her day, writing one of her
charming love letters to Mr.—afterwards Sir William—Temple,
thanking him for the loan of ‘‘La Reine Marguerite,” and recom-
mending to him the “Cléopatre” of Calprenéde, which she has both
in French and in English. The first-named work was a French
account of the intrigues of the Queen of Navarre (the heroine of
Dumas’ novel ‘‘La Reine Marguerite”), and the other a collection
of stories translated from the French, fashionable in that day, but
unreadable by reason of their dulness in this. In the “ Rape of
the Lock,” which was written about 1712, Pope refers to this
kind of work as if it was still the staple of fiction, though, I should
judge, already a little old-fashioned ;—
aa
27
*¢ For this e’er Phoebus rose he had implored
Propitious Heaven, and every power adored,
But chiefly Love—to Love an altar built
Of twelve best French romances neatly gilt.”
The great masters of English prose in Queen Anne’s reign,
Addison, Steele, and Swift (I leave out philosophers like Locke,
and statesmen like Bolingbroke), wrote nothing which resembled
a novel more nearly than the “Sir Roger de Coverley Essays” in
the Spectator, and the burlesque or satire of ‘“Gulliver’s Travels.”
There is indeed one prose writer of that age who told a tale which
seems destined to survive many once famous volumes, and to
retain in its old age all the attractions of youth. Daniel de Foe’s
“ Robinson Crusoe” has been translated, admired, and imitated in
every language of the civilized world, and may fairly be said to be
the parent of all books of adventure which have since been written
in the English language.
Here certainly was a man who discovered a rich unworked vein
of literature, and who may claim, if any author may, to have been
original. He possessed in an extraordinary degree the art of
giving to his creations an air of reality and life; a great gift at all
times, but one which perhaps gave even a higher degree of pleasure
and illusion to the less jaded literary perceptions of his contempo-
raries than it does to us. One advantage indeed he had which
his modern imitators can never hope for: the world was younger
then, and the belief in “Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do
grow beneath their shoulders,” was not quite extinct. There was
no Chinese Embassy established in Portland-place, nor did we
import Zulu warriors and Japanese artisans to dance their war
dances or ply their trades at the Aquarium for the amusement of
Cockneys ; and if an inventive author stretched a point in his
geography or his facts, there was no wire to bring back a correction
next day from the uttermost parts of the earth; nor even a Literary
Association whose members might put him right in the next
week’s Carlisle Fournal, We was free, and his audience was
trustful, and what they lost in accuracy, they gained perhaps in
invention and wonder.
28
The first two English novels appeared almost simultaneously
just one hundred and fifty years ago. Richardson’s “Pamela”
was published in 1739-41, and Fielding’s ‘‘Joseph Andrews” in
1742. Richardson is generally spoken of as our earliest novelist,
but he and Fielding enter the arena so nearly together, and the
one is so little an imitator of the other, and the two together so
cover the whole ground of the ‘‘novel,” as we understand the
word, that I think the honour of the discovery—(or perhaps I
ought to say, of the zmfortation, for they both came after Le
Sage and Marivaux) should be divided between them.
Of Richardson’s three novels—“ Pamela,” ‘Clarissa Harlowe,”
and “Sir Charles Grandison”—“ Pamela” was the first, and
“Clarissa Harlowe” the longest and best; and the best in spite of
being very long. “Pamela,” says Sir Walter Scott in his life of
Richardson, ‘‘made a most powerful impression on the public.
Hitherto romances had been written generally in the old French
taste, containing the protracted amours of princes and princesses
told in language wildly extravagant and metaphysically absurd. °
In these wearisome performances there appeared not the most
distant allusion to the ordinary tone of feeling, the slightest
attempt to paint mankind as it exists in the ordinary walks of life.
It will be Richardson’s eternal praise, did he merit no more, that
he tore from his personages those painted vizards which concealed
under a clumsy and affected disguise everything like the natural
lineaments of the human countenance, and placed them before us
barefaced in all the actual change of feature and expression and
all the light and shade of human passion. It requires a reader to
be in some degree acquainted with the huge folios of inanity over
which our ancestors yawned themselves to sleep, e’er he can
estimate the delight they must have experienced from this unex-
pected return to truth and nature.”
“Clarissa Harlowe” excited probably greater enthusiasm and
greater curiosity than any work that ever was published, except,
perhaps, the early “Waverley Novels.” Richardson, who was a
master printer, and fifty years old when he began to write, published
Clarissa” in instalments, and was deluged with letters—as Dickens
29
was after him—from correspondents begging him to save the inno-
cent Clarissa, or to reform the rake Lovelace, as if they were living
souls whose fate in another world depended upon their behaviour
in this. ‘Pray sir,” wrote one lady, “‘make Lovelace happy: you
can so easily do it: pray reform him; will you not save a soul,
sir?”
Byron could not read “Clarissa Harlowe” through ; Rousseau,
on the other hand, and Diderot declared that ‘‘no romance had
ever been written in any language equal to, or even approaching
it.” The hyper-aristocratic Horace Walpole pronounced it and
“Sir Charles Grandison” to be “two deplorably tedious lamen-
tations,—pictures of high life as it would be conceived by a
bookseller, and romances as they would be spiritualized by a
Methodist teacher.” ‘Thackeray once told Macaulay that he had
‘not read “Clarissa.” “Not read ‘Clarissa !’” cried Macaulay. “If
you have once thoroughly entered on ‘Clarissa,’ and are infected
by it, you can’t leave it. When I was in India, I passed one
season at the hills, and there were the Governor-General and the
Secretary of Government, and the Commander-in-Chief, and their
wives. I had ‘Clarissa’ with me, and as soon as they began to
read, the whole station was in a passion of excitement about Miss
Harlowe and her, misfortunes and her scoundrelly Lovelace. The
Governor’s wife seized the book, and the Secretary waited for it,
and the Chief Justice could not read it for tears.” That was more
than fifty years ago, before the day of Dickens and Thackeray, of
Miss Bronté and George Eliot, and of hundreds of others who
have had their day and ceased to be, or who still live as esteemed
tenants of our shelves, and I venture to doubt whether ‘Clarissa
Hariowe” would make quite such a sensation now at a hill station
in India. Whose fault is that? Or is it anybody’s fault? Is it
not because the best novel is from its nature more ephemeral than
the best poetry or the best history? It smacks more of the
generation for which it was written: it is more for an age, and
less for all time. The extreme length of “Clarissa,” its antiquated
and formal style, and its minuteness of detail and lack of incident,
are sufficient to account for its being distasteful to the present age,
30
which is shocked too by the extraordinary brutality of the heroine’s
family and the unnatural submission which is demanded from
Clarissa by her parents and is only half-condemmed by Richardson.
Deference to parents has been a diminishing quantity probably for
some centuries past, and certainly, in some respects, it is as well it
has diminished. That a father, or even a brother, should dispose
of a girl’s hand contrary to her inclinations, and solely on pecuniary
grounds, seems to have been accepted by both parents and children
in those days as a necessary and ordinary part of the exercise of
family government, and Richardson’s readers would probably see
nothing more in Mr. Harlowe’s brutality than the injudicious
straining of a just authority.
Richardson’s great contemporary and rival, Henry Fielding,
wrote much, and on many subjects, but, like Richardson, he is
best known by three novels, ‘Joseph Andrews,” ‘Tom Jones,’
and “Amelia,” the first of which appeared in 1742, and the last in
1751. There is life and humour in all that he wrote, and though
you may not, after reading one of his stories, be conscious of as
intimate an acquaintance with the anatomy and the secret workings
of the hero and heroine’s moral self, as you would be if Richardson
were the author, you will probably have realized them better as
actual human beings with average virtues and at /cast average
frailties: you have been amused with lively incidents, and you
have taken in a picture of life and manners, the value of which
must increase from generation to generation. M. Taine, in his
history of English Literature, hits off in a sentence, though perhaps
rather a harsh sentence, the strong and the weak points of Fielding
as a novelist. ‘‘Fielding,” he says, “has painted Nature, but
Nature without refinement, poetry, or chivalry.” I say a rather
harsh sentence, because there is in “Parson Adams,” who is
generally admitted to be his finest character, refinement, poetry,
and chivalry of a rustic kind—Cavaileria Rusticana—if I may
borrow the title of a recent popular opera. But allowing something
for French vivacity and epigram, Taine’s criticism Js fairly just.
Gibbon’s praise of ‘Tom Jones” is much less stinted, and though
it is found in his autobiography, it has all the resonance and
Cape
31
magniloquence of his historic style. ‘Our immortal Fielding was
of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their
origin from the Counts of Hapsburgh, . . . The romance of
‘Tom Jones,’ that exquisite picture of human manners, will out-
live the Palace of the Escurial and the Imperial Eagle of the
House of Austria.” Time has not yet fully tested his prophecy.
The Eagle of the House of Austria no longer covers a Holy Roman
Empire with its wings, but ‘Tom Jones” survives, and the Escurial
still stands where it did.
Smollett pressed closely on the heels of Richardson and Fielding
with his “Roderick Random,” in 1758, followed by “ Peregrine
Pickle,” “Ferdinand, Count Fathom,” and “Humphry Clinker.” In
the first two of these Smollett, who had been present as an assistant
surgeon on one of Her Majesty’s ships at the bombardment of
Carthagena in 1741, draws largely on his personal experiences,
and gives a vivid, though it may be a dramatically exaggerated
picture of the roughness and tyranny of life in the navy. His
experiences on shore are equally interesting and diverting, and I
do not know where there are to be found more lively and striking
pictures of life on sea or land one hundred and fifty years ago,
than those which appear in his pages. They are full, too, of keen
satire upon official jobbery, injustice, and corruption, and other
defects which were common in that age, though not perhaps
peculiar to it; and as for incident, there are incidents and inter-
ludes enough in ‘Roderick Random” alone, to furnish forth a
dozen novels of the modern type.
Laurence Sterne, as we all know, was a country parson, who
wrote very eloquent sermons, but had the reputation of falling
sadly short in practice of the moral standard which he set up therein.
His first and last novel, “Tristram Shandy,” was published in
1759, two years before the death of Richardson ; and he completes
the quartett of novelists who, flourishing at the same time, held
the field against all comers—except, perhaps, Oliver Goldsmith—
until Sir Walter Scott entered it.
I called ‘Tristram Shandy” a novel; but it really has none of
the essentials of a novel, except the drawing of character by means
32
of conversation. There is a total absence of story, plot, or incident,
and it matters little whether you read from the end to the begin-
ning, or from the beginning to the end of the book. It is from
their amusing and discursive talk alone that you are left to form
your opinion of Uncle Toby and Mr. Shandy, of Dr. Slop and
Corporal Trim. Really the work should rather be classified with
the immortal series of essays in which Addison gives us the vision
of Sir Roger de Coverley, than with such books as “Tom Jones”
or “Vanity Fair.” Sterne’s fame is due not to any constructive
power as a story-teller, but to his humour and his sentiment, or, to
speak more accurately, to a humour which, occasionally coarse, is
frequently mixed with a strain of tenderness which leaves the*
sensitive reader in doubt whether he is expected to laugh or to cry.
The recording angel’s tear dropped upon the record of Uncle Toby’s
oath ; the starling in its cage crying, “I can’t get out, I can’t get
out ;” the fly which tormented Uncle Toby till he caught it and
put it out of the window carefully, saying, “the world is large
enough for thee and for me”—are all famous and hackneyed
instances of the humorous-pathetic style in which Sterne excels,
The recording angel’s tear is a rather daring experiment, but the
passage which leads up to it, where Uncle Toby and his servant
Trim, both equally bent on saving the life of poor Le Fevre, take
opposing views as to his chances of recovery—is a fair specimen
of Sterne’s method.
*¢¢A sick brother officer should have the best of quarters, Trim ; and if we
had him with us we could tend and look to him. Thou art an excellent nurse
thyself, Trim ; and what with thy care of him and the old woman’s and his
boy’s and mine together, we might recruit him again at once and set him on his
legs. In a fortnight or three weeks,’ added my Uncle Toby smiling, ‘he might
march.’ ‘He will never march, an’ please your honour, in this world,’ said
the Corporal. ‘He will march,’ said my Uncle Toby, rising up from the side
of the bed with one shoe off. ‘An’ please your honour,’ said the Corporal, ‘he
will never march but to his grave.’ ‘He shall march,’ said my Uncle Toby,
marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch, ‘he
shall march to his regiment.’ ‘He cannot stand it,’ said the Corporal. ‘He
shall be supported,’ said my Uncle Toby. ‘He'll drop at last,’ said the
Corporal, ‘and what will become of his boy?’ ‘He shall not drop,’ said my
Uncle Toby firmly. ‘Ah, well-a-day, do what we can for him,’ said Trim,
ee
33
maintaining his point, ‘the ‘poor soul will die.’ ‘Ee shall not die, by G—,’
cried my Uncle Toby. The accusing spirit which flew up to Heaven’s chancery
with the oath blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it
down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out for ever.”
I have dealt now with the four leaders of English Fiction, and
the question probably occurs to you, Why is it that so few now
read their works? ‘As regards Fielding and Smollett, and, to a
less degree, Sterne, I believe one principal reason of this neglect
to be the frequent coarseness of the scenes which they describe,
and of the language which they put in the mouths of their char-
acters ; a coarseness which has made them unfit books to put into
the hands of youth at the time when tastes are first formed. The
“Vicar of Wakefield” is still a common and appropriate present
for a boy or girl down to this day; but no one would think of
setting them down to read “Tom Jones” or “Roderick Random.”
Grown-up people who have a real taste for literature read them for
their merits, and find themselves well rewarded ; but the general
public grow up in ignorance of them, new editions and cheap
reprints are not called for, and they sink out of sight, replaced
generally by works of infinitely less talent and interest.
I spoke just now of the “Vicar of Wakefield,” Oliver Goldsmith’s
one novel. Epitaphs are proverbially liars ; but that was a true as
well as a famous sentence, which Dr. Johnson inscribed upon
Goldsmith’s monument in Westminster Abbey :—
**Nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit
Nullum tetigit quod non ornavit.” *
If we could take a literary census, I doubt if we should find
that any author’s works of the last century were so much read at
the present day as those of Goldsmith. I should assert with
considerable confidence, that the ‘‘Traveller” and the ‘“ Deserted
Village” are more read than any other poem of the century, except
Gray’s Elegy. Certainly the “Vicar of Wakefield” is read ten
times for once that any other novel of that period is read. The
only two plays which Goldsmith wrote, “She Stoops to Conquer,”
and “The Goodnatured Man,” were unqualified successes, and
3
34
hold the stage to this day. His essays were the best since the
Tatler and Spectator. His Histories of Greece and Rome, though
sketchy and incomplete, according to our modern notions of school
history, were very superior to anything of that day, and conveyed
to many generations of schoolboys their first knowledge of classic
story. ‘‘Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “he had the art of compiling, and
saying anything he had to say in a pleasing manner.”
Most of you may remember the history of the publication
of the “Vicar of Wakefield,” as told by Johnson to Boswell; but
at the risk of repetition I will read it, for it presents a lifelike
portrait of the two men—a portrait more flattering to Johnson
than to Goldsmith—but a real likeness withal :—
“‘T received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith, that he was in
great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I
would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to
come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found
that his landlady had arrested him for his tent, at which he was in a violent
‘passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle
of Madeira and a glass before him. I putacork into the bottle, desired he would
be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated.
He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to
me. I looked into it and saw its merits; told the landlady I should soon
return ; and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for £60. I brought Goldsmith
the money and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high
tone for having used him so ill.”
Poor Goldsmith’s tendency to borrow guineas from his friends
and to change them for bottles of Madeira overwhelmed him with
debts and trouble, and finally with disease, which carried him off at
forty-six, in the year 1774. He is buried in the Temple, where
the memorial over his grave marks the disappointment of the hope
he so pathetically expresses in the “Deserted Village” :—
** And as a hare whom hounds and horse pursue,
Pants to the place from which at first she flew,
I still had hopes—my long vexations past—
Here to return, and die at home at last.”
Dr. Johnson himself is sometimes classed as a novelist in respect
of his authorship of ‘‘Rasselas ;” but whatever the merits of that
35
very serious little work may be, they hardly give it a claim to a
place in the catalogue of light literature.
The “Vicar of Wakefield” was not the only novel published in
1764, and there is a strange contrast between the circumstances of
the authors and the fates of their books. Horace Walpole,
wealthy man of letters, son of the great Sir Robert, and heir to an
earldom, contemptuous of Grub-street, but anxious for literary
fame, published his “Castle of Otranto” in the same year in which
Goldsmith paid his rent out of the 460 which Johnson brought
him from the bookseller as the price of his work. The “Castle of
Otranto” is almost forgotten, and indeed it has no great claim to
live. Walpole published it first anonymously, though, as appears
from his correspondence, he made no secret of the matter with
his friends. In the preface he pretends it is a translation from the
Italian : “The following work was found in the library of an ancient
Catholic family in the North of England. It was printed at
Naples, in black letter, in the year 1529. ‘The style is the purest
Italian”—and so forth. It is a dull story, in which the principal
part is played by a gigantic helmet which has a habit of crushing
out of existence those who come between the true heir of Alfonso
and the inheritance of the Castle of Otranto. Mr. Leslie Stephen,
the most accomplished living critic of the literature of the 18th
century, says of it: “Scott criticizes the ‘Castle of Otranto’ seri-
ously, and even Macaulay speaks of it with a certain respect.
Absurd as the burlesque seems, our ancestors found it amusing,
and what is stranger, awe-inspiring.” From which we may gather
that it failed to amuse or awe Mr. Stephen. I remember reading
it as a boy for the sake of the ghost ; but I doubt if any boys read
it now.
There was another and much more famous ghost-story-teller,
whose novels Horace Walpole lived to read—and possibly to envy
their superior popularity. Mrs. Radcliffe wrote the “Romance
of the Forest,” the ‘Mysteries of Udolpho,” and several other
romances, between the years 1790 and 1797. ‘They abound in
huge castles, buried in pathless forests, honeycombed with mys-
terious passages, owned by wicked barons, peopled by unscrupulous
36
retainers, and haunted by most active, ubiquitous, and altogether
ineffectual ghosts. There is a good deal of soft music in the air,
and a good deal of murder done on ¢rra firma, and there is a
great deal of descriptive writing about fine scenery which Mrs.
Radcliffe had seen in her travels and had evidently thoroughly
enjoyed and appreciated. Let me, in order to illustrate the
difference between what is sometimes called “fine writing,” and
the artistic simplicity of a master hand, read the concluding lines
of the “Mysteries of Udolpho” and the “Vicar of Wakefield”
respectively.
In “Udolpho,” the heroine has been married to the hero and
duly endowed with castles and estates ; every reputable character
in the book has been amply provided for, and every disreputable
person has been killed or otherwise put out of the way. The
peroration follows :—
“‘Oh! how joyful it is to tell of happiness such as that of Valancourt and
Emily ; to relate that, after suffering under the oppression of the vicious and
the disdain of the weak, they were at length restored to each other—to the
beloved landscapes of their native country—to the securest felicity of this life,
that of aspiring for moral and labouring for intellectual improvement—to the
pleasures of enlightened society, and to the exercise of the benevolence which
had always animated their hearts ; while the bowers of La Vallie became once
more the retreat of goodness, wisdom, and domestic blessedness !
“Oh! useful may it be to have shewn that though the vicious may sometimes
pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment
certain ; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by
patience, finally triumph over misfortune !
“And if the weak hand that has recorded this tale has by its scenes beguiled
the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it—
the effort, however humble, has not been in vain, nor is the writer unrewarded,”
It is like the “tag” at the end of an old-fashioned comedy,
where the players being all assembled in couples before the foot-
lights, the principal gentleman delivers himself of a ponderous
moral sentiment, and then the principal lady steps forward and
says, “And if only we have succeeded in amusing our kind
friends,” etc.
How much more simple and natural, and yet how much more
37
artful is the conclusion of Goldsmith’s famous novel. Sophia has
been married to Sir W. Thornhill, and George to Miss Wilmot,
and Olivia’s marriage to the squire has been satisfactorily proved :
“When we were to sit down to dinner, our ceremonies were going to be
renewed. The question was whether my elder daughter, as being a matron,
should not sit above the two young brides ; but the debate was cut short by
Sir George, who proposed that the company should sit indiscriminately, every
gentleman by his lady. This was received with great approbation by all,
excepting my wife, who I could perceive was not perfectly satisfied, as she
expected to have had the pleasure of sitting at the head of the table and carving
the meat for all the company. But notwithstanding this, it is impossible to
describe our good humour. I can’t say whether we had more wit among us now
than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end
as well, One jest I particularly remember: old Mr, Wilmot, drinking to
“Moses, whose head was turned another way, my son replied: ‘Madam, I
thank you.’ Upon which the old gentleman, winking upon the rest of the
company, observed that he was thinking of his mistress. At which jest I
thought the two Miss Flamboroughs would have died with laughing. As soon
as dinner was over, according to my old custom, I requested that the table
might be taken away, to have the pleasure of seeing all my family assembled
once more by a cheerful fireside. My two little ones sat upon each knee, the
rest of the company by their partners. I had nothing now on this side of the
grave to wish for—all my cares were over, my pleasure was unspeakable. It
now only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should exceed my former
submission in adversity.”
And so the curtain falls between us and that fireside circle. It
is a simple scene, simply described, but it possesses us with a sense
of their happiness—the quiet happiness of the old father—the
rather fussy happiness of the mother—and the boisterous happi-
ness of the young people—better than twenty pages of fine writing
could do. It is a prose companion of Wordsworth’s more
sombre picture of the family in some upland village, listening to
the Christmas Waits :—
** How touching when at midnight sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear, and fall again to sleep ;
Or at an earlier call to mark,
By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence,
38
*« The mutual nod the grave disguise,
Of hearts with gladness brimming o’er
With some unbidden tears that rise,
For names once heard but now no more ;
Tears brightened by the serenade
For infant in the cradle laid.”
From Goldsmith, the brilliant Bohemian,
‘‘Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,”
we turn to Queen Charlotte’s lady attendant, Miss Frances Burney,
afterwards Madame D’Arblay, the authoress of “Evelina” (1778)
and “Cecilia” (1791), who was famous for her conversation in her
old age, but never ‘soared with the angels” in her writings. She
is now probably better known to most through her diary and its
review by Lord Macaulay, than by actual perusal of her novels ;
and, except as pictures of old-world life and manners, I do not
know why these should now be read, although they had merit
enough to excite the enthusiastic praise of such contemporary
critics as Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke. They may have been
right in singling her out for praise in her age and generation, for
in the fifty years that elapsed between the publication of the
“Vicar of Wakefield” in 1764, and “Waverley” in 1814, I do not
remember any novelists’ reputations which have survived to our
day, except those of Miss Burney and Mrs. Radcliffe, if indeed
such faint vitality as they retain can fairly be called a survival. Her
father, Dr. Charles Burney, the author of the “History of Music,”
was born in 1726, and she herself died in 1840, at the age of
eighty-eight, so that the joint lives of father and daughter covered
the whole period which elapsed between the death of George I.
and the birth of his great-great-great-great grand-daughter, the
Princess Royal, an interval of seven generations. She tells her
story, as Richardson did, in a series of letters; and Evelina’s account
of a conversation between some fine ladies and gentlemen at the
pump-room at Bath, is a fair specimen of the author’s style, while
the conversation itself, though a trifle rougher, is not much more
vapid than many which might be heard in very good company
at this day.
2
39
‘At the pump-room I was amazed at the public exhibition of the ladies in
the bath. It is true their heads are covered with bonnets ; but the very idea of
being seen in such a situation by whoever pleases to look is indelicate. ‘Jove,
George,’ said the Captain, looking into the bath, ‘this would be a most excellent
place for old Madame French to dance a fandango in! By jingo, I wouldn’t
wish for better sport than to swing her round in this here pond!’ ‘She would
be very much obliged to you,’ said Lord Orvill, ‘for so extraordinary a mark
of favour.” ‘Why, to let you know,’ said the Captain, ‘she hit my fancy
mightily ; I never took so much to an old tabby before.’ ‘Really, now,’ cried
Mr. Lovel, looking also into the bath, ‘I must confess it is to me very incom-
prehensible why the ladies choose that frightful unbecoming dress to bathe in ;
I have often pondered very seriously on the subject, but could never hit upon
the reason.’ ‘Well, I declare,’ said Lady Louisa, ‘I should like of all things
to set something new a-going ; I always hated bathing, because one can get no
pretty dress for it. Now do, there’s a good creature, try help me to something.’
‘Who, mz? Oh! dear ma’am,’ said he simpering, ‘I can’t pretend to assist a
person of your ladyship’s taste ; besides, I have not the least head for fashions
—I really don’t think I ever invented these in my life! But I never had the
least turn for dress, never any notion of fancy or elegance.’ ‘Oh, fie, Mr.
Lovel, how can you talk so? don’t we all know that you lead the fox in the
beau monde? I declare I think you dress better than anybody?’ ‘Oh dear,
ma’am, you confuse me to the last degree! J dress well. I protest I don’t
think I’m ever fit to be seen. I’m often shocked to death to think what a
figure I go. Ifyour ladyship will believe me, I was full half an hour thinking
what I should put on.’ ‘Odds my life,’ cried the Captain, ‘if I'd been near
you, I warrant I’d have quickened your motions a little! Half an hour thinking
what you’d put on! And who the deuce do you think cares the sniff of a
candle whether you’ve anything on or not.’ ‘Oh pray, Captain,’ cried Mrs,
Selwyn, ‘don’t be angry with the gentleman for thinking, whatever be the
cause ; for I assure you he makes no common practice of offending in that way.’
‘Really, ma'am, you are prodigiously kind,’ said Mr. Lovel angrily. ‘ Pray,
now,’ said the Captain, ‘did you ever get a ducking in that there place yourself?’
‘A ducking, sir! I protest I think that’s rather an odd term, but if you mean a
bathing, it’s an honour I have had many times.’ ‘And pray, ifa body may be
so bold, what do you do with that frizzle-frize top of yourown? Why, I'll lay
you what you will, there is fat and grease enough on your crown to buoy you
up if you were to go in with your head downwards,’”” Etc. Ete.
From which it would, amongst other things, appear that the
ladies and gentlemen bathed in the same large public bath in the
city of Bath in those days, with a public walk around it—as you
you may still see them in the baths of Leuk in the Valais; that
40
sailors carried their board-ship manners into society in a way
which would be thought odd now, though Miss Burney’s sea-
captain is a perfect master of deportment compared with Smollett’s ;
and that the dandies of that day wore their own hair, but disguised
with grease and powder.
There are but two other novelists whose names I think it
incumbent on me to mention briefly in connection with the
Eighteenth Century, “Monk” Lewis and William Godwin. Miss
Edgeworth and Miss Austin, though born respectively in 1767
and 1775, did not begin to write until 1800 was past and gone,
Matthew Gregory Lewis (a young man of means and position, who
entered Parliament soon after he was of age), wrote at twenty a
work called the “Monk,” which attracted great attention, and
procured for him the nickname of “Monk” Lewis, by which he
has ever since been known. Unfortunately he repeated, and with
exaggeration, the coarsenesses of Smollett, and that in an age
which was less tolerant of indecencies. The work which follows
is long out of print, and is not to be found now in many good
libraries. The “Bravo of Venice,” another story of his, very
much after the fashion of Mrs. Radcliffe, was, I think, published
in the nineteenth century, but will scarcely survive into the
twentieth.
William Godwin, whose eighty years were spent in this world
between-1756 and 1836, is perhaps better known now to the general
mass of readers as the husband of Mary Wolstencroft, and the
father of Mary Godwin, the second wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley,
and authoress of ‘‘Frankenstein,” than as the author of “Caleb
Williams,” or as the writer of numerous works on political and
social topics. Yet “Caleb Williams,” which was published in
1794, is very ably written, created a great sensation at the time,
and seemed to have secured for itself what an Irishman once
happily called a “temporary immortality.” William Hazlitt, the
greatest critic of that day, spoke of it as “a masterpiece both as to
invention and execution.” De Quincey, on the other hand, says:
“Critics of talent have raised ‘Caleb Williams’ to a station in the
first rank of novels; whilst many more, amongst whom I am
Spa Seg Hae BA? ©
41
compelled to class myself, can see in it no merit of any kind.”
If I might venture a modest opinion between these two great
authorities, I would say that “Caleb Williams,” after the lapse of
one hundred years, will still repay the reading ; which, if true, is
surely no small praise of any novel.
I have now brought to a close my very imperfect review of our
novelists of the last century. If it fell within the scope of an
address, one might be tempted to compare them with those of our
own generation. It is enough for the present, to say that the
differences are obvious, and they are emphasized by the fact that
many books which were the daily delight of our great grandfathers
and great grandmothers, have now become mere literary curiosities.
One is tempted to ask, How has this been brought about? Are
such changes in literary taste wrought by some author who sets
the fashion, or are they the effect upon authors of a gradual change
in the public taste? Is it the quality supplied which creates the
demand for such a quality, or does the demand govern the quality
supplied? It is the same problem in literature which Thomas
Carlyle set himself to solve in history: Is the world governed and
guided by its men of genius, or are they only the brilliant expo-
nents and workers out of the world’s ideas? We know that he
believed in the autocracy of genius rather than in the creative and
progressive power of a democracy, and certainly he is a brilliant
example of independent and original literary genius. But if I were
to attempt to give a short answer to my own question, I should be
disposed to say that both causes have always been at work acting
and re-acting one upon the other.
That great authors have certainly had an effect upon the style
and mode of thought of their successors, no one can doubt. On
the other hand, I believe that every writer is influenced mainly,
not by another writer, but by the spirit of the time in which he
lives, by that ever changing atmosphere, made up, in ever-varying
proportions, of the material comfort, the religious faith, the educa-
tion, the political aspirations, and the manners of a nation. If,
like a chemist, we could analyse the spirit of the Eighteenth
Century, we could find out perhaps why what pleased our ancestors
42
often pleases us less or pleases us no longer. In the meantime, let
us be thankful that the Eighteenth Century and all its predecessors
have left to us English folk so much that we can enjoy, so much
that we cannot surpass.
NOTES ON THE WATER SUPPLY OF EDENSIDE.
By J. G. GOODCHILD, H.M. Grou. Survey, F.G.S.
(Read at the Penrith Annual Meeting.)
In the neighbourhood of Penrith the annual rainfall, taking one
year with another, may be said to average about thirty inches,
which is another way of stating that, if all the rain that falls in a
year near Penrith could be kept exactly where it reaches the earth,
there would be a sufficient quantity to cover all the ground to a
depth of rather less than a yard. As the rain-water does not
accumulate in this way, but, on the contrary, the ground is left
practically dry, it is clear that the water must have gone off in
some other way. Where part of it goes is not difficult to find out;
we have only to notice the effect of a copious watering upon
flower-gardens, or upon roads in dry weather, to find out that the
soaking extends to but a small distance from the surface—usually
not more than three or four inches down—and that it has to be
frequently repeated, if we desire to keep the surface in question in
a moist condition. In both cases, it is clear that the water has
been dried up, or, in other words, has gone back into the air.
The quantity got rid of by evaporation in this way is dependent
upon very complex conditions, which need not be discussed here.
For the present purpose it may suffice to state that, in a general
way, at least one-third of the quantity of rain precipitated dries
up again sooner or later, and so finds its way back again into
the air.
What becomes of the remaining two-thirds is not difficult to
44
make out either. We can easily calculate, with the aid of a map
and a table of rainfall, how much water is landed in any particular
river basin in the course of a year. Then, if we make a series of
estimates of the quantity of water annually discharged into the sea
by the river itself, we can get a fair approximation to the quantity
of water that is being returned to the sea by that particular
channel. Theoretically this quantity should be the remaining
two-thirds of the total quantity of rainfall, after deducting the
one-third dissipated by evaporation. Practically the quantity is
less than two-thirds; but with that particular deficit we are not
now concerned.
The history of the quantity discharged by rivers is somewhat
complex, but, at the same time, it is a matter of considerable
practical importance in many ways. What happens is something
of this kind. After heavy rain, when the ground has become
thoroughly wet, some of the surplus water begins to flow down the
nearest slopes in the direction of the lowest level it can find; and,
if nothing happens to prevent its doing so, it will flow on, receiving
additions right and left as it goes, until it reaches some small sike
or other established water-channel. This, in its turn, flows on
until it reaches a beck, the beck until it reaches a river, and the
river until it joins the sea, and carries the water back to where it
came from originally. The sun supplies the force that lifts the
water in the first instance, gravity takes it back.
But it very rarely happens that rain water goes back to the sea
by this direct route—certainly not more than half of it flows off
the surface. Notice the difference in the quantity of water that
finds its way into the side gutters of a street where the roadway is,
say, asphalted, and where it is paved with material of a more open
and porous kind. The gutters in the one case rapidly become
the channels of small torrents, and as rapidly become dry again ;
while in the other the quantity running off is comparatively small,
and is both slower in rising to fulness, and equally slow in drying
up. These two cases well illustrate on a small scale some phe-
nomena that occur on scales of almost every magnitude.
In nature the quantity of surface-water flowing off is in like
45
manner dependent upon the character of the surface. After a dry
season peat, for example, takes up rain water almost as greedily as
a sponge would do; and for a very long time after the wet season
commences, nearly every drop of rain that falls on a peat moss,
dry to begin with, soaks into the peat and for a time stays there.
After a while the peat becomes saturated, water oozes out of the
sides of the hags—if we are dealing with fell-peat—and thence is
delivered slowly and steadily into the head waters of the streams,
and so on down to the sea. Loose sand, shingle, and many other
rocks of the same kind, behave in like manner; they, too, soak up
the water as fast as it reaches them, and allow it to percolate
downward to the point where a change of porosity sets in. Lime-
stone, again, where not capped by clay or other watertight
material, allows the water to sink into its joints to almost any
extent. In the wonderful expanses of perfectly bare grey lime-
stone, such as Orton Scar and similar areas south of Appleby, rain
may fall in torrents and yet not a pint of it will flow more than a
dozen yards or so over the limestone. As well might one try to
fill a sieve with water as to get up a small stream on limestone
areas cut up by rock-fissures innumerable as these are. As fast as
the rain falls on a surface of that kind, down it goes, and is,
apparently, lost to sight for ever.
Orton Scar is, it is true, something out of the common, but it
serves well to illustrate an extreme case. As another extreme we
might take some of the areas of Silurian rocks, such as those of
‘the Howgill Fells, where the rocks are more or less impermeable,
and where a very large proportion of the rainfall is swept at once
into the becks, and only a small percentage sinks in. If we
compare the surface features of the two areas (which adjoin) we
shall find no streams at all (or practically none) on Orton Scar,
while on the opposite or south bank of the Lune, watercourses
abound. Yet the rainfall is nearly the same over both areas; only in
the one the water flows off almost as fast as it comes down, while in
the other it sinks inte the rock and disappears underground. It
is the same everywhere, hence the permeability or impermeability
of the surface rocks is a matter of considerable importance in
46
questions of underground water-supply. Reasoning back on these
grounds, from effects to causes, we might safely argue that over
any area where the mileage of watercourses happens to be relatively
large, there most of the rain-water runs off, and but a small part
of it sinks into the rock ; while in the districts where the mileage
of water courses is small in relation to the area, there a corre-
spondingly-large percentage of the total rainfall percolates into-the
rock, and lies beneath the surface instead of upon it.
Water descends into rocks through the action of two causes; of
these gravity is the more important, as the mere weight of the
water carries it downward along joints or fissures or any line of
weakness on the way. The other cause is capillary attraction,
which helps stones of all kinds to absorb water in larger or smaller
quantities. A widely-jointed rock will imbibe large quantities of
water through the action of gravity, aided, of course, by capillary
action ; while a stone of open texture will drink in as much as a
gallon and a half of water per cubic foot of stone. Chalk will
absorb as much as two gallons per cubic foot, and will transmit to
the strata adjoining a large proportion of the water thus taken in.
Rocks vary much in respect to the proportion of water they are
able to transmit as compared with the quantity retained within the
stone as quarry water. But in open-grained freestones the quantity
that may be thus transmitted is usually very high, so that in these,
if little or no clayey matter be present, there is a slow but steady
descent of the rain-water from the surface to-all parts of the rock
below, at least as far as the plane of saturation. As this plane is
lowered by pumping, by the emission of water in the form of
springs, or by any other cause, the supply is balanced by the down-
ward percolation from above. And it should be noted here that
slow-filtering through freestone rock, especially if that rock contain
much irony matter, tends to free the water from any impurities,
organic or inorganic. It is to this cause that the Manchester
supply from wells owes its exceptionally good quality. Even the
water from the canals becomes purified in its underground course,
and is thereby rendered potable and suitable for domestic use in
general,
set eisai eget ta Pate
47
But at some level or other there must be a downward limit
beyond which rock-water can no longer percolate. A thin bed of
clay, or watertight rock of any kind, will always effectually prevent
the downward flow of water through pervious rock. Therefore
the water tends to be held up by such a stratum, and to accumulate
above it until a sufficient head of water has gathered in the stone
to force some of the water out to the surface, where it usually
issues along the junction of the pervious rock with the impervious.
This is how most springs arise. Another cause determining the
downward limit of rcck-water, is the proximity of surface water.
Where a river flows over a porous stratum it tends to sink into
the rock, and, indeed, does do so, until all the adjoining rock below
its own level, and to the right and the left of it, is saturated also.
Therefore, near a river, the lowest level it is possible for the rock-
water to reach is the level of the river adjoining. Now, water
travels very slowly through most rocks—perhaps it would be more
correct to say that it oozes through them, rather than flows. Asa
consequence of this cause, acting in conjunction with capillary
attraction, the surface of the water within the rock, or the plane of
saturation, as it is called, is always at a somewhat higher level in
the rock at the sides of a valley than it is nearer the river. As the
river falls in level during a drought, the level of the water within
the rock slowly responds to it, and sinks also. When the level of
the river water rises through long rain, a corresponding rise of
water level takes place in the adjoining rock, always with extreme
slowness. The outward percolation of the water in the rock is, in
fact, so slow, that the surface of saturation roughly conforms to the
larger features of the surface outside. So that if we are dealing
with a large hill of porous rock, such as freestone, there will be
within that hill a hill of water with slopes lower in angle than the
slopes of the hill enclosing it.
If we sink a well into the hill near the summit, we should have
to go to a greater depth to find water than we should if the well
were sunk nearer to the foot of the hill. But the level of the
water in the higher well would always be absolutely higher than
that in the lower; and in proportion as we try nearer to the foot
48
of the hill, we should find the permanent level of the water in the
well nearer and nearer to the surface, until next the river the
water level and the surface might actually coincide. These are no
fanciful theories, but are based upon a very large body of facts,
and they hold good just as much in one part of the kingdom as in
another.
Local application. (1). Water Supply West of the Eden :—Near
Penrith there are two types of rock-structure, which give rise to
very different results so far as water supply is concerned. On the
Keswick side of the Northern-Western Railway, there is a large tract
of country over which most of the rain that falls is got rid of either
by evaporation or by overflow. The rocks consist of rapid alter-
nations of pervious beds and other strata more or less impervious,
and consequently the water does not percolate far down through
them before it is thrown out to the surface as springs. Over such
a country as this, the chances of meeting with a good water supply
by means of wells sunk into the so/id rock, are much too uncertain
to be worth serious consideration.
But between the North-Western Railway and the River Eden
there is a large tract of country over which the rock is of a very
different nature. The tract of hilly ground running northward
from the Eamont, past Lazonby, consists of the Penrith Sandstone.
This rock, which is not less than a thousand feet in thickness,
overlies the impervious rocks just mentioned, and is tilted in such
a manner as to bring its highest beds down along the River Eden,
while its middle beds form much of the high ground of Penrith
Beacon, and the hills to the north-west, and its base comes out
near the North-Western Railway. The beds overlying it are
impervious to water, or practically so. The Penrith Sandstone
thus forms a thick sheet of pervious sandstone, enclosed between
the impervious series below, and the equally impervious series of
marls east of the Eden.
The Sandstone itself is highly pervious to water, and as there
are no beds of clay in it, or anything to stop the downward perco-
lation of water, nearly every drop of rain that falls upon it begins
to soak downward into the rock directly it falls, and is not arrested
MS Tee eS ee Oe ee
49
in its downward passage until it meets with the plane of saturation
already described in the general remarks just made. The exact
form and position of this plane of saturation are as yet only a
matter of conjecture, as I do not know of a single well that is
sunk in the rock itself, from one end of its outcrop to the other.
But that the rock is saturated with water, is sufficiently evidenced
by the fact that, along the line where the overlying impervious
beds come on, springs burst forth in many places, some of them
in the bed of the Eden itself, but others along its western bank, as
at Edenhall, and elsewhere. What happens here is that the plane
of underground saturation of the Penrith Sandstone actually cuts
the surface, and this could only be the case. if the hill slopes
enclosed an interior hill of water.
As regards the quality of the water within the hill, I need hardly
do more than refer to the fact that the New Red Sandstone,
of which the Penrith Sandstone forms one member, has been
universally regarded as one of the very best repositories of under-
ground water known; and as such it figures most prominently in
all the rocks whose water-bearing properties are treated of in the
Reports of the Royal Commission on Water Supply, in the Reports
on Water Supply issued for years past by the British Association,
and in every book without exception, which deals with questions
of water supply in general. Possibly a little calcareous matter
might render the water derived from its lower part somewhat hard ;
but the middle and the upper part of the Penrith Sandstone are
free from any rock material of that kind, and may confidently be
expected to yield water of the finest quality obtainable.
In regard to quantity, I should say that on the lower slopes of
the Penrith Sandstone on the west bank of the Eden, the supply
would prove practically inexhaustible at almost any spot, and the
water would rise in any well sunk there to a level not many feet
below the surface. On the Penrith side of the hills the chances
would be not quite so good ; but even there it is a mere question
of going deep enough.
At the Penrith waterworks at Eamont Bridge, all the necessary
conditions for a copious supply of good water are present, as the
4
50
plane of saturation of the freestone must there be very near the
surface. If a well were to be sunk there, it would be necessary
from the outset to exclude every drop of water immediately derived
from the river gravels and other superficial deposits, as these,
although likely to yield an abundant supply of water, are more
than likely to be charged with objectionable impurities. It is not
at all a difficult matter to stop out such surface water, and it ought
to be done in the case of every weil situated near any possible
source of pollution. I have no doubt at all that if a well were
sunk only twenty or thirty feet into the solid freestone which
underlies the Eamont pumping works, water of unexceptionable
quality would flow in from the surrounding rock, just as it does
invariably in other cases of the same kind elsewhere. It would
not be necessary at the outset to make a large “head” to the well ;
but when both the quantity and the quality of the water have
proved satisfactory, it would then be advisable to keep the engines
going as hard as they would go, and then, when the head of water
is low, to enlarge the upper part of the well to the dimensions
required. If this is done under the superintendence of a professi-
onal well-sinker accustomed to work in the New Red Sandstone,
I have not the slightest doubt about the ultimate success of the
scheme.
(2). Water Supply East of the Eden :—The district lying on the
S.W. side of the Cross Fell Range as far as the Eden, consists
almost entirely of St. Bees Sandstone, a higher member of the
New Red Series than that on which Penrith stands. The St.
Bees Sandstone is almost certainly the very same rock as that
which furnishes the chief underground water supply of Manchester,
and of many other large towns situated near the New Red Sand-
stone. The St. Bees Sandstone behaves, hydrologically, much the
same as the Penrith Sandstone, which passes underneath it. But
it differs from the Penrith Sandstone in being somewhat closer
textured, and therefore not so capable of transmitting water rapidly,
and also in being interbedded at no very distant intervals with
beds of marl. One result is, that springs are thrown out here and
there all over its outcrop. But the general character, and the lie
dl
of the deposit, are both indicative of good water-bearing conditions,
which reach their optimum along a line whose range may be
roughly defined as lying about half-way between the Midland
Railway and the foot of the Cross Fell Escarpment. Along the
zone indicated, from Dufton, through Kirkland, and Ousby, to
Renwick and Cumrew, all the necessary conditions for a suitable
water supply exist within a hundred feet of the surface.
In conclusion, I may remark that no geologist accustomed to
deal practically with questions of underground water-supply, would
for a moment hesitate in regard to what course to advise in dealing
with the water supplies of Edenside. He would say: Sink a trial
‘well, stop out all water except what comes through the rock;
then, if the results so far are satisfactory, enlarge the well to the
dimensions required.:
et Tees eet
:
=
(ea
53
REFORMS NEEDED IN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
By H. A. LEDIARD, M.D., Epin.; F.R.C.S., Ena.
(Read at Penrith, Fune, 1892. )
REFORMS in the Criminal Procedure of our Courts of Justice have
been imminent for many years; discussions have been held in
Parliament, Royal Commissions have sat, judges have met in con-
sultation, but as yet nothing of importance has been effected,
except, perhaps, that the ground has been cleared, and future
progress thereby facilitated.
That reform is needed goes without saying; indeed, all high
legal authorities are in favour of several alterations, but such has
been the pressure of business in Parliament that delay has been
inevitable. In this short paper it is intended to point out where
our present system has been found wanting, and to indicate the
direction which reform in criminal procedure is likely to take. The
subject is not one in which I am naturally interested, nor is it one
in which I can claim any special knowledge, and were it not that
certain circumstances have, so to speak, forced themselves upon
my view, it is highly probable that I should not have paid any
attention at all to reform in criminal procedure. On the other
hand, questions relating to medical jurisprudence are a part of the
training of every medical man, and therefore all reforms in law
have a practical bearing upon the medical profession at large.
For my hearers to-day my subject may not only appear ill-chosen,
but absolutely wanting in interest. I am aware of the difficulty,
and if I ask your attention it is because I hope to attract your
bd
sense of fair play, and to concentrate it for a short time upon
matters demanding public ventilation no less than Parliamentary
enactment.
The object of all criminal procedure is to establish the truth, to
vindicate the law by punishing the guilty, and to protect the inno-
cent; whilst the indirect result should be to -deter others from
crime of all sorts. To this end procedure divides itself into two
parts : that which is publicly and that which is privately carried out.
I deal first with the private steps taken in criminal procedure.
The discovery of crime rests with the police, for the most part, to
whose knowledge the circumstances may come from various
sources ; they have, so to speak, the getting up of the case, or the
preparation of an accusation for the magistrates or the coroner.
These higher authorities await the evidence brought before them
by the police, and the upshot of the preliminary investigation
depends much upon the intelligence which has been brought to
bear upon the case by the police. ‘The coroner is often, as much
as the magistrates, in the hands of the police ; for whether he may
or may not discover the guilty party depends mainly upon the
evidence brought before him.
Those who know anything of criminal justice are aware that in
cases which turn on circumstantial evidence, as cases of murder
almost always do, it requires great intelligence and some experience
to avoid a blunder. It requires an intellect to construct a theory
of guilt upon certain facts, so as to arrive at conclusions as to the
course to adopt. I lay stress upon the fact that the earliest stage
in our criminal procedure is the most important, and is, under our
present system, left in the rudest and clumsiest hands. I am not,
at the present moment, casting any reflection upon so useful a
body as our police, who are more cr less educated, and more or
less intelligent.
When, however, we consider the ranks from which they are
necessarily recruited, the wonder is, not that they should occasion-
ally make mistakes, but that the blunders are not more frequent
than they really are.
A man is one day a railway porter, or an agricultural labourer ;
§
‘
4
55
the next day he is a policeman, with uniform and a note-book, and
may be taking part in the investigation of a serious crime. Some
of such men have more or less aptitude for the business ; some are
hopelessly stupid, and make terrible blunders. I admit at once
that in this respect but little more can be expected; by and by,
when the new education scheme has had time to bear fruit, we
may have a better intellectual unit to start with. In the mean-
while, the policeman needs the direction and control of a far
superior sort of officer than he has under the present system. The
Scotch régime is far superior to our own, for in it the private and
preliminary part of the investigation of a crime is conducted by a
Procurator Fiscal, who is generally an acute and experienced
lawyer. In his work he is aided by the police, who are his
assistants ; he is the promoter of the accusation or prosecution,
the police are simply the executive agents of justice, and not its
managers or prosecutors. The police are subordinates, and not
the principals, in the administration of criminal justice.
The higher the character of the public functionary, the less
considerable is the danger of false charges or conspiracy, whilst as
regards false charges being pressed upon false theories, not only is
our present system no guarantee against it, but, on the contrary,
it is one of its main evils that it tends so dangerously to it. For,
as already seen, the preliminary stage of our criminal procedure is
practically in the hands of the police, hence the probability is that
they form a false theory, and sooner or later they come to.rest on
it; and then, having once acted upon it, they become deeply
interested in adhering to it, and then one of two things follows:
either an innocent person is in danger of conviction, or justice is
baffled, and the guilty party escapes.
~ One of the main evils of the present system of leaving criminal
prosecutions in the hands of the police is, that they are stimulated
to over eager and precipitate conclusions from a desire to promote
their own advancement ; for promotion in the police force depends
on the number of convictions obtained.
The preliminary investigation in all criminal charges should be,
in my opinion, entrusted to a legally trained and qualified man,
~
56
who would have the police as his agents, and who would not only
act as a check for too zealous constables, but direct the steps in the
tracking out of a crime.
I pass on now to say a few words upon an important change
which is contemplated in a Bill at present referred to a Standing
Committee of the House of Lords, I mean the Lord Chancellor’s
Bill to amend the Law of Evidence. Its purport is as follows:
that “every person charged with an offence, and the wife or
husband as the case may be, of the person so charged, shall be a
competent witness.” To the lay mind it seems the most proper
and natural thing in the world, that if a man is accused of a crime,
he should be asked at the earliest possible moment to give an
explanation of the circumstances which led to his being suspected;
but at the present time a person charged with an offence is, with
certain statutory exceptions, incapable of testifying in his own
behalf. Denounced by Bentham in 1827, this practice has still to
be swept away. In the Middle Ages, ‘‘the question” meant
torture. If a prisoner was arrested and charged and refused to
admit his guilt, he was tortured until he confessed. There is no
fear now of a prisoner being questioned in the old sense ; but the
time has come when in the interests of justice and of the prisoner
himself, he should be free to give, on oath, his own version of the
circumstances.
Under our present system, a prisoner is protected from all .
judicial questioning before or at his trial, but he is prevented from
giving evidence on his own behalf. This system has been con-
sidered advantageous to the guilty; it avoids any appearance of
harshness. On the other hand, questioning, or the power of giving
evidence, is of positive assistance to innocent persons ; “for a poor
and ill-advised man is always liable to misapprehend the true
nature of his defence, and might in many cases be saved from the
consequences of his own ignorance or misfortune by being ques-
tioned as a witness.”*
It is not that people are reluctant to lie so much as it is an
extremely difficult matter to lie minutely and circumstantially
* Stephen’s History of Criminal Law,
.
|
57
without being found out, and no greater test of innocence can be
given than the fact that as soon as he is charged, and while there
is time to inquire into and test his statements, a man gives an
account of the transaction which will stand the test of further
inquiry.
Nothing could be more favourable to innocent persons accused,
say of murder, than the opportunity of explaining their own case in
the witness box; and nothing could be more fatal to those who are
guilty, and who would necessarily have to rely upon a fictitious or
hypothetical defence.
- How Poverty INFLUENCES JUSTICE.
In the present day, the defence offered by a prisoner is very
much a question of means, and I desire to make a few observations
upon the difficulties which attend the poor when they are face to
face with a grave charge.
For the well-to-do, probably our criminal procedure presents no
particular disadvantage, for an able solicitor is at once consulted,
and in his hands all that is needful is done. Every stage of the
preliminary investigation is watched. A brief is carefully prepared
and counsel instructed, so that there is not a point omitted. We
may feel sure that under such circumstances if a prisoner is
innocent he will have but little difficulty in establishing his
innocency. On the other hand, the poor prisoner, in addition
to his intellectual disadvantages, is hampered at each step by want
of means, and when a wrong conviction occurs in an English
Criminal Court, it is usually caused by treating a poor and ignorant
man as if he were rich, well advised, and properly defended. Let
us suppose the case to be one of murder, and that an individual
has been charged with it. In the case of a rich man, a solicitor
immediately instructs a medical man to watch the Jost-mortem
examination on behalf of his client, which step has the important
influence of checking the observations of a scientific nature made
by the medical men employed by the police. The eye often sees
what it expects to see, and a medical man looking out for certain
appearances which the information he has received leads him to
58
expect may be present, may very easily be deceived; but where
another doctor is watching in the interests of a prisoner, any such
fault of observation is probably corrected at once. A poor man
cannot afford such a protection, he is completely at the mercy of
the doctors employed by the police, who may be conscientiously
doing their best to report faithfully the result of a fost-mortem
examination, and yet may be mistaken in spite of the greatest care.
For example —Dr. Thomas Smethurst was tried August 15, 1859,
for poisoning Isabella Banks; found guilty, and sentenced to
death. The case gave rise to much discussion, and Smethurst
was reprieved and then pardoned. The Home Secretary wrote to
the Lord Chief Baron: ‘The necessity which I have felt for
advising Her Majesty to grant a free pardon in this case has not
arisen from any defect in the constitution or proceedings of our
criminal tribunals. It has arisen from the imperfection of medical
science, and from the fallibility of judgment in an obscure malady,
even of skilful and experienced medical practitioners.”*
It should be a rule that no fost-mortem examination should be
made in a case of gravity unless a prisoner has an independent
medical man to watch over his interests at all examinations of the
body, parts of the body, clothing, stains, weapons, or furniture, or
any object or thing destined to form a part of the circumstantial
evidence to be brought against him.
The force of circumstantial evidence depends entirely upon
whether all fallacies have been eliminated, and this applies very
strongly to medical evidence. There may be mal-observation, in
which the error does not lie in the fact that something is unseen,
but that something is seen wrong. Whilst the greatest of all causes
of mal-observation is a preconceived opinion,
The next point where a poor man is at a disadvantage is at his
trial; here the solicitor engages counsel, to whom a small fee is
paid, and a somewhat hasty line of defence is drawn up, no brief
even having been prepared. The defence, owing to want of means,
is wanting in all essential particulars, and scientific witnesses have
not been engaged. When a prisoner is undefended, his position is
* Stephen’s History of Criminal Law,
59
often pitiable, even if he has a’ good case; for an ignorant and
uneducated man: has the greatest difficulty in collecting his ideas,
and seeing the bearing of the facts alleged. ‘To a man,” says Sir
James Stephen, ‘ who has sense, spirit, and, above all, plenty of
money, the présent’ protection afforded is considerable, but it is
not possible to prevent'a:good deal of injustice where these con-
ditions: fail.”
I have elsewhere, z.¢., in the Lancet, October 18, 1889, expressed my views
as to expert medical evidence, and just allude to the subject in order to repeat
the opinion there stated, that an ordinary medical practitioner is not competent
to deal with intricate chemical analyses of stains on clothing, and obscure or
questionable injuries on the human body.
CourT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL.
It is a characteristic feature in English criminal procedure that
it admits of no appeal, properly so called, upon matters of fact,
although there is a Court for Crown Cases Reserved, which can
determine questions of law arising at a trial, yet it cannot take
notice of questions of fact. No provision whatever has been made
for questioning the decision of a jury on matters of fact.
However unsatisfactory such verdict may be, whatever facts may
be discovered after the trial, which, if known at the trial, would
have altered the result, no means are at present provided by law
by which a verdict can be reversed. All that can be done is to
apply to the Queen for a pardon for a person believed to have
been wrongly convicted ; the evil is notorious, but it is far from
easy to find a satisfactory remedy.
I will endeavour to put the difficulties before you. If every
convicted prisoner had a right of appeal, in all probability an
appeal for a new trial would be made whenever a prisoner could
afford it, and thus appeal would be rather for the well-to-do
prisoners than for the needy. Thus there would be a verification
of the old saying, “there is one law for the rich and another for
the poor.”
If the question whether or not there should be an appeal, rested
with the judge who had tried the case, the new trial would depend
upon whether the judge thought that the jury had been harsh
60
towards the prisoner, and this would not provide for cases where
fresh circumstances had come to light since the trial, as the judge
would probably have to act upon the notes he had taken at the
trial.
In the next place, it has been proposed to give the Secretary of
State power to grant a newtrial. Here again the Secretary of
State would be largely influenced by the judge who tried the case.
At the present time he is so influenced in questions of reprieve, to
a very great extent.
It is obvious that this suggestion would not help matters much;
and the only way to settle the question would be to allow all
convicted prisoners the right of appeal to a Court of Appeal com-
posed of several judges, who would have power to order a fresh
trial if a case was made out.
At the present time there is a sort of private appeal to the
Home Secretary, who can advise Her Majesty to reprieve a
prisoner sentenced to death, to remit a sentence altogether, or to
curtail an imprisonment. This appeal is made to a political
person who has an enormous weight of other duties to perform,
and who naturally refers to the judge who tried the case; and this
judge may have been absolutely wrong in the direction of his
remarks in his summing up, and may have misled the jury com-
pletely. The private nature of the present mode of appeal is
objectionable, as it is rarely known upon what grounds the convict
is reprieved or the Queen’s pardon granted. ‘Ihe proposal at the
present time—although it has not been put into a practical form—
is to establish a Court of Criminal Appeal, consisting of five or
more judges, and to this Court, I take it, all prisoners convicted
would have power to appeal for a new trial.
It is in cases of death sentence, however, that the Court of
Appeal would have considerable difficulty, because, in this country,
so short a time is allowed between a death sentence and the
execution. Here an appeal would have to be made at once; and
one can quite understand that in every case of death sentence
there would be an appeal made—in some cases probably with no
other object than to postpone the carrying out of the execution ;
oo
,
61
but it is precisely in death sentences that appeal would be of
enormous value.
Take into consideration the instances, well known, where the
death sentence has been actually carried out, and the convict
actually proved to have been entirely innocent by subsequent
confessions of others. In spite of the utmost care, it is known
that even the strongest circumstantial evidence has sometimes led
to conviction and death of absolutely innocent persons. ‘There is
much reason to conclude that, for example, Wiggins hanged in
London in 1867 ; Hayes and Stone of Durham, 1873; and two of
the three men hanged at Leicester in 1877, with various others
recently executed in foreign countries, were put to death by
mistake.*
Others have been saved after sentence, and ultimately shown to
have been innocent, as in the’cases of Polizzioni, of London; Hab-
ron, of Manchester, 1876; Alice Rhodes, of Penge, 1877 ; Siddle,
of Durham, 1884; Travis, of Cheshire, 1889, and many more.*
When a man is hanged through a mistake in the evidence, judge,
jury, or witnesses concerned in his trial, there is no restitution
possible; whereas, if a man is sent to penal servitude, it is not
impossible, whatever the delay may be, that the Home Secretary
may be induced to listen to arguments in favour of a prisoner
which may be brought before him.
Under the present system many have had their lives spared,
many have been restored to liberty, but the public have never
learned where the mistake was, or who was at fault; whether the
police were misled, whether the witnesses committed perjury,
whether the judge was biassed, or whether the jury was stupid and
ignorant. All that transpires is that the Home Secretary has
reprieved a man sentenced to death, or that such and such a
prisoner, convicted at such and such assizes at such a time, has
been liberated by order of the Home Secretary. However satis-
factory a mode of proceeding this may be to those concerned, it is
a highly objectionable proceeding for the general body of the
public ; and if any want of trust is felt in the justice of our present
* From Howard Association Report.
62
criminal procedure, some of it is, no doubt, due to the uncertainty
which surrounds the conduct of the Home Secretary in dealing
with the private appeals made to him for his intervention in the
cases of convicted prisoners. Take the liberation of Mrs. Osborne
this year. Would a poor woman have been thus leniently treated ?
I have mentioned the case of Polizzione, and it is worth another word added.
In February, 1865, this man was tried for the murder of Harrington, found
guilty, and sentenced to death by Baron Martin, who said he ‘‘never heard
more direct and conclusive evidence.” Mr. Negretti, after the trial, obtained
much new evidence, and Polizzione was respited ; Mogni, a cousin of Polizzione,
who was tried for the manslaughter of Mr. Harrington, and being found guilty,
was sentenced to five years penal servitude. Mogni confessed that he, and not
Polizzione, stabbed Harrington. Polizzione was afterwards liberated on a free
pardon. (See Annual Register, 1865.)
It has been put forward as an objection to the establishment of a
Court of Criminal Appeal, that such a Court would weaken the
position of the assize trials and diminish the responsibility of
juries. To my way of thinking, nothing weakens our present
system so much as the knowledge we have that occasionally
undoubted criminals go scot free, and occasionally innocent
persons are nearly hanged or sent to penal servitude. Eliminate
the fallacies associated with our present system by providing a
Court where mistakes can be publicly corrected, and the majesty
of the law will be upheld. I am not aware that the appeals now
provided for from the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction, the County
Courts, and all Courts where civil business is transacted, have had
any injurious influence upon justice in general; if it is so in the
least degree. I have never-heard of any proposal to abolish such
appeals; on the other hand, many efforts have been made to
harmonize criminal procedure to civil procedure by establishing
a Court to which appeals might be made.
Let it be clearly understood, that upon a question of a sale of a
horse, or a dog, or a cow, appeal is allowed, but not upon a case
which concerns the life of a man. It is merely by accident that
there may be some informal re-investigation of the case by the
Home Secretary. It depends upon whether local or public
interest happens to be excited by it. If not, the man or woman is
oe
63
executed, and there is an end of it; or the murderer escapes, and
triumphs over justice, and there also is an end of it, for a prisoner
~ can never be tried again after once he is acquitted.
In the Bill introduced by Sir Henry James in 1883, it was pro-
posed to give every defendant convicted of a capital crime an
absolute right, irrespective of the opinion of the judge who tried
the case, to apply to the Court of Appeal for a new trial, not only
on the ground that the judge was mistaken in his law, but also on
the ground that the verdict was against the evidence, or was
founded on insufficient evidence.
In non-capital crimes the leave of the court of trial was to be
required to enable a defendant to apply for a new trial to the
Court of Appeal on a question of fact. The action of the standing
committee to which the Bill was referred was very decidedly in the
direction of extending rather than limiting the absolute right of
appeal, and had the Bill in its final shape become law, it can
hardly be doubted that almost every conviction for murder, and a
large number of convictions for other crimes, would henceforth
have been followed by an application to the Court of Appeal for a
new trial.
It is not pretended for a moment that any system can give us
absolute security against an occasional doubtful conviction, or even
that a Court of Appeal would be infallible ; indeed, it is quite
possible that a prisoner’s pecuniary resources would determine the
appeal, rather than the intrinsic merits of the verdict ; nevertheless,
cogent reasons weigh down all these objections, and the matter of
grave importance is to determine how a prisoner sentenced to
death could avail himself of the benefit a Court of Appeal might
afford him.
In civil cases new trials can only be applied for immediately
after judgment, but the course contemplated in. the Criminal
Appeal Bill was an application made by the defendant for an
appeal within a week after judgment, and it is clear that in capital
cases the application, if it is to be made at all, must be made
quickly. A prisoner sentenced to death is usually executed in less
than three weeks after judgment, so that in capital cases it may be
64
said that a new trial would hardly ever be granted on the ground
of fresh evidence.
In non-capital cases, it is most improbable that any application
would be made on this ground till a considerable length of time
after judgment had elapsed, and then the difficulty of getting
together: the original witnesses would usually be found insuperable,
and the Court of Appeal would have to act on very imperfect
information as to the circumstances accompanying the alleged
crime. It is of importance not only to recognise the difficulties
occasioned by the establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal,
but to discuss them fully in order to advance another step towards
reform in our criminal procedure. I turn for a moment to an
aspect of the question I have not seen touched upon anywhere, _
although, no doubt, it has crossed the minds of those interested in
criminal appeal.
It seems to me that for those whose business it may be to get up
a case or prepare an accusation, be he policeman, lawyer, or doctor,
and for those who are concerned in the trial, be he magistrate,
counsel, juryman, or judge, that the knowledge that behind all
said, done, or sworn, a Court of Appeal is prepared ready, perhaps,
to overhaul false statements, perjuries, fallacies of observation,
mistakes due to haste, and many other sources of error, it seems
to me that such a Court would not have anything but a controlling
effect, and that we should have more care exhibited to avoid
blunders.
The policeman would, perhaps, be more careful in his arrests if
he felt sure that his promotion depended not only on the issue of
the assize trial, but also upon the issue before a possible Court of
Appeal. The lawyer who prepared the brief for the prosecution
would hardly feel a sense of lessened responsibility, whilst medical
and scientific witnesses would have to be far more careful in their
investigations and analyses than they sometimes are at present.
As for the judge, his notes would, if anything, be still more care-
fully taken, and the witnesses more searchingly examined upon all
doubtful points arising in the course of a grave charge.
It stands to common sense, no less than to reason, that no one
65
likes to be told that he has made a mistake, and, as a consequence,
there would be greater care taken in the private preparation of an
accusation, in case those responsible were found on the appeal to
have been guilty of apathy or of too much zeal.
CoMMON JURIES.
Experience has shown that the verdicts of juries are just in the
very great majority of instances, but where strong prejudice exists,
juries are frequently unjust, and are as capable of erring on the
side of undue convictions as they are of undue acquittals. Juries
are by no means infallible, and this applies more especially to an
average common jury consisting of small shopkeepers and petty
farmers, who will rarely have the memory, mental power, or habits
of thought essential for the purpose.
Of good special juries this is far from being true, and in criminal
cases of gravity or difficulty there should be power given to sum-
mon a special jury. Probably many defects that exist in our jury
system would be removed by having more highly qualified jurors ;
and if arrangements were made for their comfort and payment of
expenses when on duty, men of standing and consideraticn might
be found willing to fill the position.
Counsel is often heard in Court appealing to the jury to dismiss
from their minds all they have heard of the case before them prior
to their coming into Court, and they are reminded of their oath to
well and truly try the prisoner. I imagine, however, that it is
impossible for a juryman to get rid of the impressions first made
upon his mind by what he has heard shouted in the streets by
newspaper boys, or read in a district newspaper, of a shocking
murder, assault, or the like. In the present day, all details con-
nected with crime, or supposed crime, are published with the
utmost rapidity, and these details, which are always more or less
incorrect, are circulated in newspapers in the district from whence
the jury are drawn—so that-in spite of himself, a man’s mind may
be tolerably well made up long before he goes inte the jury box.
We have had, during the last two generations, considerable experi-
ence of trials of all kinds without juries, and, in the opinion of
5
66
some eminent in the law, there is a greater probability of justice
being done by trial before a judge alone than by trial before a
judge and a common jury. On the other hand, a good special
jury leaves but little to be desired.
Of the reforms needed in our Criminal Procedure, it may be
that if a prisoner was allowed to give evidence upon his own behalf,
a Court of Appeal would be less necessary ; or again, if jurymen
came from a more educated class, a Court of Appeal would be
less pressing. Nevertheless, in my opinion, there should be a
Court of Appeal, even though it should prove a considerable cost
to the country. .
I have endeavoured to point out that miscarriage of justice may
arise from various causes frequently associated in the course of our
criminal procedure. In the first instance, the original steps taken
privately are not under the control of a legally educated or experi-
enced person; in the second place, the poor circumstances of a
prisoner may lead to his absolute powerlessness to throw off
charges brought against him ; in the third place, in grave charges,
I have questioned whether our common juries have sufficient
intelligence to grasp intricate points argued before them. There
is one point more; now that equity and law have been fused, our
criminal judges are chosen indifferently from the Chancery, and
the Common Law Bar; hence it may well happen that the
first time an eminent barrister makes acquaintance with a criminal
court, may be when sitting as judge to try for his life the first
criminal whom he has ever seen; and thus it happens that many
of the judges when first appointed, are by no means experienced
persons as far as acquaintance with criminal law goes. Is this
not another strong reason in favour of the establishment of a
Court of Criminal Appeal?
It is impossible to make any judge infallible. He is simply a
barrister who has been successful in his profession, and may or
may not possess the special quality essential to a good judge; he
may not have a judicial mind, and if so, no amount of experience
will give it to him. Of the judges in the present day, some have
and some have not judicial minds ; it is not difficult to distinguish.
67
Now, if a judge wanting in judicial capacity sums up against a
prisoner, and the jury—as juries sometimes do—pay no heed to
the counsel and listen attentively to the judge and endeavour to
take the cue from him, it is not unreasonable to believe that
occasionally the verdict returned is not what it should be; and yet
we have at present no adequate means of reviewing sentences in
criminal cases,
In conclusion, I add a note of what has been done elsewhere,
as it has a direct bearing upon what has already been stated. The
Vienna correspondent of the Zimes has reported as follows: “A
bill which may be described as of universal interest, has just been
before the Austrian Chamber of Peers. It concerns the indemnity
to be granted to victims of a miscarriage of justice. The House
has declared itself, without reserve, in favour of the State being
compelled to afford ample compensation for judicial errors. A
measure in all respects similar has been adopted by the Lower
House. According to the Bill in the Chamber of Peers, the State
must be held responsible for a miscarriage of justice in criminal
_- affairs, as a railway company is called to account for an accident
on its line. It is practically on this basis that the House has
proceeded. When the Emperor Leopold IL., prior to his accession
to the throne, governed Tuscany under the title of Grand Duke
Leopold I., he instituted a law according to which innocent people
who had suffered judicial punishment were entitled to an indemnity
from the Government. There have of late years been sad instances
of the kind in England, in which, unfortunately, the Treasury did
not feel called upon to grant anything approaching an adequate
_ compensation for the great wrong inflicted. The example just
given by Austria might be followed with advantage at home for
the administration of justice, which is in almost all respects more
efficient and equitable than in this country.”
69
BORDER WARS AND THE MOSSTROOPERS.
By THOMAS CARRICK.
(Read at Keswick.)
_ Wuen the Romans invaded Britain it was divided amongst about
forty-five tribes. The north of England, up to the Tyne and
Solway, was occupied by the Brigantes, Setantii, and Voluntii ;
farther north were the Ottadini and Selgove. . The Brigantes, or
Brigands, were by far the most powerful. They were a restless
and warlike people, and gave the Romans no end of trouble before
they were subjugated. Probably the Brigand blood has circulated
in the borderers’ veins ever since, for hardihood and daring have
eyer been their chief characteristics,
During the Roman occupation, what is now called the Roman
Wall, stretching across the isthmus from the Tyne to the Solway,
was the border line. For many centuries after the Romans left,
_ and especially during the Saxon Heptarchy, the borderland became
_ entirely changed and very different from what it is now. The
Anglo-Danish Kingdom of Northumbria, with its throne at
Bamborough, stretched from the Forth to the Humber, and the
. Kingdom of Cumbria from the Clyde to the Mersey.
During the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, those two
q kingdoms were broken up. Since then, with few exceptions,
England and Scotland have been divided by the Solway, the
Cheviots, and the Tweed; Cumberland and Northumberland on
the south, and Dumfries, Roxburgh, and Berwickshire on the
70
north, forming the border counties. The Sark, Esk, Liddel,
Kershope, Till, and Tweed being the favourite battle-ground of
the clans, and thence to the Tyne, Irthing, Eden, and Solway, the
chief raiding ground of the Scotch.
The border wars, which raged for more than a thousand years
after the Romans left, were of a three-fold character—national,
feudal, and agrarian. The national wars left several mementoes
in the form of huge fortresses, such as those of Carlisle, Newcastle,
and Berwick-on-Tweed.
The feudal wars left as ¢eir legacy an immense number of
castles, like so many watchdogs, scattered all over the north, such
as Naworth, Penrith, Cockermouth, Egremont, Brough, Brougham,
Kendal, Appleby, Scaleby, Chipchase, Warkworth, Alnwick, Bam-
burgh, Thirlwall, Featherstone, Bellister, and many others on this
side of the borders, to say nothing of those on the opposite
border.
The mementoes of agrarianism are not so numerous. Being
less massive and solid, many of them have vanished, or become
converted into ordinary dwellings, and are not recognised except
by the practised eye of the archeologist or antiquarian. They
were usually called fe/es, and took the form of castles, towers,
houses, and garths.
The pele castles were similar to the feudal castles, but smaller,
and less massive, with a large fold for cattle and sheep. The pele
towers were a combination of castle, fold, and watch tower. The
pele houses were composed of two immense rooms, one above
another, parted by huge oaken beams laid from wall to wall, and
battened together with thick oaken boards. The walls were from
four to nine feet thick, with one door only sufficiently large to
admit the small border cattle. The doors were backed with
beams laid across them—each end inserted into the wall, The
windows were high, and so small that a man could not enter. The
roofs were flags, fastened to oaken beams by wooden pegs or
sheep-shank bones. Whten the watchers gave the signal that the
raiders were astir, all the live stock were driven into the lower
room, the people taking refuge in the upper room, ascending by an
71
inside ladder. The door secured, the ladder drawn up, the hatch-
way battened down, they defended themselves as best they could
with long-bows, guns, stones, boiling water, and other means of
defence—for all were governed by
The good old law, the simple plan,
That he shall take who has the power,
And he shall keep who can,
The pele garth was simply a fortified enclosure on the fells or
common, into which, in comparatively peaceable times, the live
stock were driven at night, as a security against small bands of
raiders. It was defended by a deep ditch, and usually two walls
of turf or stone. There is a fine specimen of such a place near
Langwathby called Crewgarth.
We need not dwell on the za/tonal battles fought on the borders,
as they are recorded in ordinary history. From the time of
William of Normandy, whose armies were met on the borders by
Malcolm of Scotland, the wars raged incessantly. During the
reign of Stephen, David of Scotland “cried havoc and let loose
the dogs of war” in such a way that the border counties of
_ England were one wide scene of desolation.
This was repeated by William the Lion of Scotland, and
Henry II. of England, and again by Alexander of Scotland and
_ John of England. And so the tale of blood and plunder continues,
right up to the time when the two countries were united in the
person of James the First of England.
There are two battles which stand out prominently on the pages
of history, at once typical in their character, decisive in their
issue, and far-reaching in their influence—Bannock Burn and
_ Flodden Field—immortalized by Campbell and Scott. I have
traversed the latter with “Marmion” by my side, and, in
imagination, listened to the blare of the trumpet, the neigh of
the warhorse, the roar of cannon, and the clash of steel ; seen
again the flower of the Scotch nobility stretched upon their
gory bed, and heard Caledonia lamenting, in the language of one
of her gifted daughters, that the flowers of the forest were ‘a’
wede away” :—
72
I’ve heard them lilting, at the ewe milking,
Lasses a’ lilting before the dawn of day ;
But now they are moaning, in ilka green loaning,
The flowers of the forest are a’ wede awae.
At bughts in the morning, nae blithe lads are scorning,
Lasses are lonely, and dowie, and wae—
Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but sighing and. sabbing—
Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.
In har’st at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
Bandsters are runkled, and lyart, and gray ;'
At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleetching,
The flowers o’ the forest are a’ wede awae.
At e’en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming
Bout stacks with the lasses at bogle to play ;
But ilk maid sits dreary, lamenting her deary,
The flowers o’ the forest are weded away.
Dool and wae for the order, sent our lads to the border,
The English for ance by guile wan the day ;
The flowers 0’ the forest, that fought aye the foremost,
The prime of our Jand are cauld in the clay.
We'll hear nae mair lilting at the ewe milking,
Women and bairns are heartless and wae,
Sighing and moaning in ilka green loaning,
The flowers o’ the forest are a’ wede away.
The feudal wars of the borders raged almost incessantly,
irrespective of national affairs. The feudal lords never stopped
to inquire who sat upon the throne of England or Scotland. The
question with them was—is there any insult or defeat to avenge?
any family quarrel to adjust? any dispute to settle? Great
questions of state, matters of royal prerogative, had little weight
with them. The vendetta of Corsica were not more implacable
than they.
The clans of the borders were mostly the following: On the
north, the Armstrongs, Maxwells, Kerrs, Johnstons, Scotts, Turn-
bulls, Rutherfords, Jardines, and Elliotts; on the south, the
Graemes and Storys of Esk and Solway, the Fosters and Fenwicks
i,
:
73
of Leven, the Crosiers and Nixons of Bewcastle, the Bells and
Milburns of Gilsland, the Liddels and Huntingdons of Brough,
the Charltons, Todds and Milburns of North Tyne, the Halls,
Hedleys and Reeds of Reedsdale, the Fenwicks and Shaftos of
central Northumberland, the Musgraves of Eden, and the Ridleys,
Thirlwalls and=Featherstonehaughs of South Tyne. But besides
these there were great barons and lords, such as the Douglas and
- Buccleuch on the north border, and the Percys, Dacres, Howards
and Harclas on the south border, some of whom bore the name
for centuries.
The manner of settling their feuds varied considerably. Some-
times the chief of a clan or family would challenge the opposite
chief to single combat, or six, eight, or ten of one clan would
challenge a similar number of another clan, and sometimes the
whole would join in the meee, and so strew the earth with their
slain. Sometimes the champion of each clan or army would
challenge each other. For example, immediately before the battle
of Hallidon Hill, a gigantic Scotsman, by name Turnbull, stepped
from the ranks and challenged any one from the English ranks to
single combat. The Scotsman, however, had with him an immense
mastiff as an abettor of his master. Sir Robert Benwall stepped
forward, and, with one blow, struck off the mastiff’s head, with a
second he struck off Turnbull’s right arm, and, with a third, struck
off his head. This was considered a bad omen for the Scots, for
when the whole joined in combat, Douglas and 12,000 Scotsmen
were left dead on the field. At Chevy Chase and Otterburn, the
Douglas and Percy joined in single combat, and afterwards the
‘whole army, when the ground was covered with the dying and
dead. ;
These champions were mostly men of gigantic stature, but some-
times //é/e men became notorious in this way—notably John Elliott,
of Park, in Liddesdale, who defeated Bothwell—hence the stanzas:
I vanquished the Queen’s lieutenant,
And made his fierce troopers flee—
My name it is little Jock Elliott,
And wha daur meddle wi’ me?
74
I ride on my fléet-footed gray,
My sword hanging down by my knee ;
I ne’er was afraid of a foe,
Then wha daur meddle wi’ me?
On one occasion a French trooper in the English army con-
quered all in single combat, but was overpowered in the general
melee, and was found to be a woman of gigantic stature and great
beauty.
The agrarians—called mosstroopers, freebooters, or border
reivers—differed from the others in that they were made up of
the most disreputable of all classes. They were governed by no
law but their own sweet will, swore allegiance to no king, sub-
mitted to no restraint. Many of them were outlaws of both
nationalities, living amongst the swamps and fastnesses peculiar to
the borders, where they could not be followed—for the training of
their ponies was so extraordinary that they could traverse miles of
moss and bog with the greatest ease where their pursuers would be
utterly lost. They often shod their horses backwards, so as to
throw their pursuers off the scent, would issue from their lairs in
the gloaming, and, choosing especially a moonlight night, would be
back with their booty and safely ensconced in their strongholds
before the sun rose. On one occasion, when being pursued, they
sent their pursuers a cow, which they had stolen, telling them they
would need some beef before they got back.
On special occasions the whole would merge and mingle, the
clans receiving help from the reivers, the barons from the clans»
and the king from the barons, for their own special behoof. There
was a portion of the borders, never properly defined, but supposed
to be eight miles by four, called the Debatable land, to which
neither country laid claim. It was a kind of “ No man’s land,” or
“Any man’s land.” Both Scotch and English could depasture
their cattle on it during the day, but had to withdraw them at
night. This debatable land became a source of mighty mischief,
and the favourite refuge of desperadoes, who, if taken, could claim
that they were Scotch or English, as it might suit their purpose.
The King of Scotland once gave a favourite cow to a friend in
75
England, but being dissatisfied with her pasture, she returned safe
and sound to Edinburgh, and it was a seven days’ wonder how
she got through the debatable land without being stolen; and
it was facetiously said she was the silliest cow in Scotland for
coming back, and the cleverest cow in Scotland for getting back
at all.
The levying of blackmail was of constant occurrence, and the
clans receiving the money were bound in honour to fulfil their
engagements.
Apart from the castles, or peles, of the lords, the dwellings of
the clansmen were mere hovels. A few stones rolled together, or
sods laid one upon another, or branches of trees set on end, with
other branches laid across, and covered with ling, heather, rushes,
brackens, straw, peat, or turf—a hole left in the centre for the
smoke to escape, and the house was complete. In fact, they had
no heart to build better houses, for they might be demolished or
burnt any hour. They lived mostly in the open air, and were
marvellously strong and muscular. Their food was milk, meat,
boiled barley, oatmeal brose, and thick cakes made of barley and
peasmeal. ‘They followed the red deer, and delighted in feats of
strength. Wild as the wind, the women were scantily clad, and
chanted in ballads the deeds of their forefathers ; whilst the men
clenched their dirks, and brandished their broadswords.
t Although their names were merged in the clan, such as the
Armstrongs and Kerrs, yet amongst each other they had their own
cognomen. ‘This was given, sometimes according to parentage,
. as “Patie’s Geordie’s Johnie,” “Nancy’s Archie’s Dick,” ‘The
Laird’s Jock,” ‘“‘ The Lady’s Hob.” Sometimes ‘they were called
after their place of abode, as “Sandy o’ the Rowenburn,”
““Cuddie o’ the Brankhoos.” Sometimes it was their personal
appearance or dress, as “ Jock o’ the lang beard,” “ White sark,”
“ Red Rowie.” Sometimes their name was a sign of reproach, as
* Hen Harrow,” “Sow Tail.” They had no furniture, and few
household utensils, except a kail pot and frying pan. They wore
coats made of leather called Jacks, and steel bonnets ; and carried
spears, dirks, staves, swords, and sometimes long bows When
76
the enemy was astir they fired beacons on the hill tops, and
waved torches on the towers.
During my wanderings in the region of the debatable land, I
have searched in vain for a beaconless hill, and as I have digged
amongst the black ashes and charred remains, what visions of reive
and raid have passed before my eyes. ‘They had war cries called
“Slogans.” ‘These were two-fold;—gathering slogans, and battle
slogans. The gathering slogan was for calling the men together,
as “Gather! gather! gather!” ‘Forth to the field!” was the slogan
used before Flodden. Very often it was a peculiar sound of the
horn or bag pipe, hence the old Northumberland gathering
song :—
Pipe of Northumbria sound,
War-pipe of Alnwick !
Wake the wild hills around,
Summon the Fenwick !
The battle slogan was used only in fight to distinguish friend
from foe, and was mostly one word, as “Stanley” at Flodden,
“Percy ” at Otterburn, and “Yet! yet! yet!”
The sign for a fresh raid was usually given by the chiet’s wife,
who, when the larder was bare, instead of bringing in a smoking
joint for dinner, brought a dish, under the cover of which was a
pair of spurs. The Charltons of North Tyne have the prophetic
spurs to this day. Scott of Harden, the ancestor of the great Sir
Walter, one evening overheard one of his servants call to another,
“Gang and fetch the laird’s coo!” ‘‘By my soul,” said the
laird, “it shall soon be kye.” That night the byres received a
fresh stock of cattle! In one of his raids, coming past a hay
stack, addressing it, he said: “‘ By my faith, if thou had four legs
thou wouldn’t stand lang there.”
The dwellers in the debatable land were considered the most
dexterous thieves in the kingdom. It was common for them to
steal on one border and sell on the other. They would even take
a neighbour’s horse, sell it on the borders, and when they had
pocketed the money, steal it and return it to its owner.
Rough, rude, and thievish however as these borderers were, they
77
had an extraordinary sense of honour. So much so, that if a
clansman was found guilty of breaking his troth, or pledged word,
he was hanged by his own people. A French writer of the period,
giving an account of the battle of Otterburn, says: ‘“‘ English and
Scotch are excellent men at arms, and when they meet in battle
they do not spare each other so long as their weapons endure, but
when it is over, they ransom their prisoners instantly, and so
courteously that they return them thanks; but, when in battle, it
is no child’s play.”
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the lawlessness of
the borders became so unbearable to both countries that they
decided to divide the borderland into three marches—east, west,
and middle. A warden was set on each border in each march,
who was held responsible. A chain of watchers was drawn across
; the country, and others set at the bridges, fords, waths, and passes.
At certain periods and places these wardens met from the opposite
marches to settle disputes and punish culprits. Great ceremony
characterised these proceedings, as the wardens were accompanied
by numerous henchmen, who were sworn to peace and good
behaviour during truce.
They were governed by certain laws, of which the following is a
summary :—
All found guilty of murder, robbery, and fire-raising with
violence, to be hanged.
All guilty of maiming and MOPS to be confined in a
dungeon for six months or more.
Receivers of stolen property treated as thieves.
_ For pasturing over the border the cattle impounded.
Ploughing, sowing, and hunting in the opposite realm prohibited.
No shelter to be given to a murderer.
All guilty of perjury to be burned on the face with a red-hot key
and outlawed.
A pass given from one realm to another to all peaceable persons.
The value of live stock stolen was fixed as follows: An ox, 13s.
4d ; a cow, tos.; an old sheep, 2s.; a goat, 16d., an old swine,
6s.; a young swine, 2s.
78
If an over-charge was made, a middle man was called in to
decide, and all matters of dispute were referred to an equal
number from each side of the border.
The wardens, during truce, received bills of charge against
offenders.
I have before me a list of fifty, from which I have taken the two
following :—
“‘ Martinmas, 1587. The poor widow, and the inhabitants of the
town of Temmin, complain upon the Lord of Mangerton for the
murder of John and Willie Tweddell, and Davie Bell; the carrying
away of 12 men and too oxen, and insight— £400.”
“Lord Maxwell complains upon Walter Graeme, of Netherby,
for burning 800 onsets, 800 kine, 300 horses, and 3000 sheep, ~
prisoners and ransomers— £500 sterling.”
Occasionally bad blood would prevail at a truce, and end in
blows. On one occasion, June 7th, 1575, at Reedswire, the two
wardens bandied irritating expressions so loudly that the forces fell
upon each other, and great slaughter ensued.
But besides these laws and agreements as between the opposite
marches, they had others which applied only to themselves. For
example, when imminent and great danger impended, all the
beacons and torches had to be lighted their full size, the slogan”
was sounded, and every man capable of bearing arms had to
muster at the appointed place. ‘Those who could afford horses
and bloodhounds were bound to bring them, and the enemy pur-
sued in what was called “ Hot trod” and general “Hue and cry,”
and no man had to slacken pace until his work was done.
The border laws were salutary in times of peace, but utterly
powerless in times of war. In fact, the borderers chafed under
times of peace. The wolf, the eagle, and the vulture are not more
delighted with the carnage of battle than were those mosstroopers
during the national and feudal struggles, for then they were
encouraged, rather than otherwise, in their freebooting excursions,
and the great barons themselves gloried in it. So much so, indeed,
that during the greater part of the sixteenth century raiding and
reiving—burning, plundering, and murder—hanging, drawing and
FERRIES
79
quartering, were of such common and ordinary occurrence that
heads, hearts, and limbs adorned the entrance to almost every
town, whilst almost every roadside hill had its gallows, from which
dangled the skeletons of the victims of these drastic laws. Hence
the commonness of places called Gallows hil/ at this day.
The year of grace 1528 may be taken as a specimen of an
ordinary year’s work, not on all three marches, but ove only—the
middle march. Word Dacre of Naworth overran and burned Can-
nobie and the debatable land four times. By way of retaliation,
Douglas made six raids on Cumberland, in one of which Netherby
was burnt to the ground. The Armstrongs in one raid burnt
sixty-nine houses, slew eight persons, and carried off immense
numbers of cattle, sheep, and horses. Douglas, in his first raid,
captured many men, and carried off 600 oxen, 30,000 sheep, 500
goats, and many horses. In his third raid he killed seventeen men,
hanged twelve, and carried many to Edinburgh to be executed.
During the year the Croziers penetrated to Gilsland, captured
thirty of Dacre’s servants, and killed eleven in cold blood—and in
retaliation, Sim, of Whitehaugh, boasted that he had wasted forty
miles of Scottish ground, and burned thirty parish churches.
During the time Belted Will was in office he gives the names of
sixty-eight persons who were convicted, and nearly all hanged.
This record is at Naworth Castle, in Lord William’s own hand-
writing.
West Cumberland, suffered as little at the hands of the free-
booters as any part of the north—for this reason, that the Solway
Frith and the citadel of Carlisle stood in the way, for they-had to
‘consider, not only how they could get here, but how they could
get back with their booty. The district that offered the greatest
facilities to the mosstroopers was that between the Eden and the
Tyne, especially east of the Irthing. By that route there were no
rivers to cross, and the inaccessible bogs, morasses, and rock-clad
hills around Bewcastle and the debatable land, formed a safe
retreat for them when pursued. Besides which they had a Roman
road between Scotland and Birdoswald. Yet, taking Cumberland
as a whole, including Westmorland and south-west Northumber-
80
land, what terrible scenes have been enacted. During the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, Haltwhistle was repeatedly raided, and the
impression made upon the inhabitants by those events was so
great that for a century afterwards they lived in mortal dread of
the mosstroopers. During the earlier part of the present century,
an old man named John Algood (Joany Oget), used to rise early
in the morning and blow a horn in various parts of the town, at
each stage delivering the following warning: ‘The mosstroopers
are coming, are coming, are coming! Kill and slay! Bear away!
Deliver up or die!”
Penrith has been burnt to the ground, and all the region round
about laid utterly waste. Appleby was once a town, or city, of
10,000 to 20,000 inhabitants, but since it was burnt by the Scots
it has been a mere village, albeit a corporation, co-existent with
London and York. The county was wrecked by Wallace in 1298,
by Murray in 1323, by Douglas in 1332 and 1345. In 1346, the
whole of the northern counties were laid waste, and only four
towns spared, in which to store booty—namely, Durham, Darling-
ton, Hexham, and Corbridge. In that expedition the Scots lost
20,000 men. Thrice on the shores of the Solway were the Scots
stopped, the last time in 1542, when 8,000 or 10,000 men were
surprised by Dacre and Musgrave, and scarcely one returned to
tell the tale.
As in a forest a tree here and there stands out prominently,
taller and more commanding than the rest, so amongst those
border clansmen some names stand out so conspicuously
that their deeds of daring are sung in border ballads at
this day. Take the following as specimens: John Armstrong,
commonly called “Gilnockie,” appropriated and lived on the
debatable land. His prowess became so great that it was said he
could ride at the head of 3,o00 horsemen, and that he levied
blackmail from the Solway to the Tyne. Henry VIII. complained
to James V. of this. James having a wholesome dread of
Gilnockie, wrote him a kind letter, inviting him to meet him at
Caerlaverock on a certain day. James came with 10,000 men.
Gilnockie, suspecting no harm, came with thirty-six horsemen, all
81
6
gorgeously caparisoned. James, struck with the grand array,
exclaimed: “‘What hath this man that a King ought not to have!”
and commanded him to be hanged with all his men. Johnnie
pleaded, but the King was inexorable, and, according to the poet,
always exclaimed :—
Away, away, thou traitor strang,
Out of my sight soon may’st thou be ;
e I granted never a traitor’s life,
And now I'll not begin wi’ thee.
Grant me my life, my liege, my king,
‘ And a brave gift I’ll gi’ to thee—
tf All between here and Newcastle town,
Shall pay their yearly rent to thee.
f At last Gilnockie got angry, and told the king it was useless to
seek grace from a graceless face, or hot water under ice, but that
if he had known, neither Harry nor he should have taken him.
And so he and his thirty-six men were hanged on growing trees,
which, it is said, withered from that day.
Kinmont Willie, another chief, was commanded to attend a
truce of the Wardens at Kershope-burn. During the truce, Willie
was captured by the English illegally, and carried off to Carlisle
; Castle. The bold Buccleuch protested against it, and when he
found pleading of no use, he determined to try to rescue him.
e Having got, privately, the measurement of the walls and the
____ position of the cell in which Willie was confined, he set out with
{ two hundred chosen men, crossed the Esk and Eden in the dark,
f ~ got into the Castle, took the guard prisoners, broke open the door
ee ee.
of the cell, rescued his man, recrossed the Eden in the face of the
foe, liberated the prisoners he had taken, and returned across the
borders without the loss of a man.
Jock o’ the Side was a mosstrooper, who, for taking part in the
unfortunate insurrection of the Earls of Northumberland and
Westmorland, was imprisoned in Newcastle gaol. Hobbie Noble,
a gigantic Cumbrian, and two others, determined to rescue him.
On arriving at Newcastle they found the walls too high to scale,
and so, seizing the guard whom they killed, they got the keys, and
6
‘ + nk my ree
82
®
found Jock with ten stones of iron on his limbs; they carried him,
irons and all, to a place of security, liberated him, and the four
returned home in safety.
In the olden times the whole district between Keswick and the
Eden was a forest called Englewood Forest.
When Robin Hood was so notorious in the Midlands, three
outlaws lived in Inglewood Forest, who were notorious all over the
kingdom for their maurauding propensities and dexterity with the
long bow. So much so that they are immortalized by Shakespeare
and Ben Johnson. Their names were William Cloudslie, Adam
Bell, and Clem o’ the Clough. Cloudslie alone was married, but
his wife and three children lived in Carlisie. One night William
told his companions he should go to see them. They charged him
that it was a dangerous game. He went to Carlisle, but soon it
became known that the outlaw was in the city. The sheriff and
all his men were down upon him in an instant, but William and
Alice, for that was the name of his wife, defended themselves so
bravely, that the sheriff had to set fire to the house. William let
his wife and children to the ground by a rope, and so they escaped,
but he was taken. A certain day was appointed for him to be
hanged, and his two companions got to know about it. The
night before the execution they stole into the city, and secreted
themselves in a place where they could see the gallows, but could
not be seen. At the time appointed, Cloudslie was brought out
to be hanged. He was fastened to a stretcher by strong ropes.
Adam, from his hiding-place let fly an arrow, and the sheriff fell
dead. Another, and another, and another. till they were falling in
all directions. No one knew whence the arrows came, and, panic-
stricken they took to their heels, and left William alone at the foot
of the gallows. When the market-place was cleared, Adam and
Clem sprang from their retreat, cut the ropes that bound Cloudslie,
put a sword and long bow into his hand, twisted the neck of the
guard, got the keys, opened the gates, and away to their hiding-
place in the forest, leaving, according to one account, the justice,
sheriff, mayor, bailiffs, and constables to the number of forty, dead
in the market-place.
83
They now decided to throw themselves on the clemency of the
king, and went to London for the purpose. The king commanded
them all to be hanged, but William had with him his boy. The
queen, who was struck with the manly bearing of the men, and the
beauty and innocence of the boy, begged for a respite, which was
reluctantly granted. On a given day a great archery competition
was to be held in the presence of king and queen, and the three
outlaws, of whose skill as archers the king had heard, were ordered
to attend it. The arrows flew so wide of the mark that they made
sport of it, and they were commanded to shoot. Cloudslie set up
a hazel stick, measured 120 paces, and split the-hazel with the first
arrow, to the amazement of the king and queen and all present.
When the applause had subsided, Cloudslie took his boy, and
placing him 120 paces distant, put an apple on his head. The
king told him if he hurt the boy all three should be hanged at
once. He now drew his bow, and took aim, whilst many of the
people wept with excitement and fear. Away the arrow sped and
split the apple in two halves, whilst the boy was untouched.
The amazement and excitement of the onlookers now knew no
bounds. The king exclaiming, “ God forbid he should ever shoot
at me,” summoned them to his presence and granted them a free
pardon. He made William the head instructor in archery and
rider of his Northern border, and the other two his personal
attendants. The queen commanded William to send for his wife
and other two children, all of whom were promoted to positions
of honour in the Royal household.
To give a recital of all the raids and reives ; the battles, burnings
and butcheries ; the wondrous exploits, and deeds of daring that
mark the history of this and adjacent counties, from the battle of
~ Dunmail Raise to the massacre of Solway Moss; from Macbeth
of Dunstanaine to Belted Will of Naworth Castle, would fill a
book ; but when we think of Bannock Burn and Hallidon Hill,
Neville’s Cross and Otterburn, Flodden Field and Solway Moss,
what a holocaust of human beings have been offered to the god of
war! What rivers of blood have flowed at the command of
covetousness, prejudice, passion and pride!
84
And now let us pause to heave a sigh and let fall a tear over the
fact that two nations, so much alike, speaking the same language,
the same blood coursing their veins, parted by no natural barriers,
having so much in common, and endowed with so many qualities
capable of mutual advantage, should have for 1,000 years devoted
their great energies and superb talents to the barbarous task of
destroying and devouring each other! And yet, let us be thank-
ful that for 300 years the hands that erewhile were imbrued in each
other’s blood have been joined, not only on many a battle-field,
but in mutual fellowship, to promote civilization and Christianity
through all the earth.
And I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and we linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and man bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience moving toward the stillness of his rest.
When the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
When the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled,
In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World !
*
a
4
85
THE BROUGHAM FAMILY.
By MAJOR ARNISON.
(Read at the Penrith Annual Meeting.)
Tue family of Brougham is of Saxon descent, and derives its
surname from Burgham, afterwards called Brougham, a parish in
Westmorland, the ancient Brocavum, or Brovoniacum, of the
Romans. In the J/tinerary of Antoninus, “Iter. V. a Londinis
Luguvallium ad Vallium” (London to Carlisle), it is stated thus :
“ Verteris (Brough) ad Brocavo, M.P. XX. mihi quidem Brocavum
esse Brougham.” Camden, in his Britannia (Edit: 1600, p. 689),
says: “Eden runs along not far from Howgill, a castle of the
Sandfords ; but the Roman military way passes directly through
Whinfell, a large park, thick set with trees, to Brovoniacum, twenty
Italian miles, but seventeen English, from Verterae, as Antoninus
has fixed it; he calls it also Brocovum, as the Notitia Broconiacum,
from which we understand the company of Defensores had their
abode here. Though age has consumed both its buildings and
splendour, the name is preserved almost entire in the present one
_ of Brougham ; the antiquity whereof has been further confirmed of
late years by the discovery of Roman coins, altars, and other
testimonies.” The ancient line of the Broughams is likewise
alluded to by Hutchinson, in his Hzstory of Cumberland.
Tuomas Burcuam, lord of Burgham 1553, married Jane,
daughter and heiress of John Vaux, of Catterlen and Tryermane,
and had two sons, viz., 1, Henry Burgham ; 2, Peter Burgham, of
whom presently. The elder son,
86
Henry Burcuan, was lord of Burgham in the reign of Elizabeth,
as appears by a grant, signed “Henricus Burgham,” and sealed with
the seal of his arms. This Henry married Catherine Neville,
daughter and heir of Sir Ralph Neville, of Thornton Briggs, county
York, and widow of Sir Walter Strickland, Knt., as appears by a
fine levied by her in the 18th Henry VIII. He was succeeded by
his son and heir,
Tuomas, who was in the commission of the peace for the county
of Cumberland ; he died sive proles in 1607, as appears by a deed
dated 29th March, 1608, reciting that Elizabeth, Margaret, and
Katherine, being the sisters and co-heirs of the said Thomas
Burgham, did, for the consideration therein mentioned, demise
unto the said Agnes, his widow, all that the manor, capital
messuage, and demesne lands called Brougham Hall, with the
appurtenances, to hold to Agnes and her assigns during her
life, &c.
PETER BrouGHAM, of Blackhall, in the county Cumberland,
uncle and heir of the last mentioned Thomas, married Anne,
daughter and heiress of John Southaic, of Scales Hall, in Cumber-
land, and thus acquired that estate. He died in 1570, and was
succeeded by his son,
Henry Broucuam, of Scales and Blackhall. This gentleman
served the office of sheriff for the county of Cumberland. He
married first Jane, daughter of John Wharton, of Kirkbythore, by
whom he had an only daughter, Jane, married to Edward Aglionby.
Mr. Brougham married, secondly, Catherine, daughter of Thomas
Fallowfield, of Melkinthorpe Hall, county of Westmorland ; and,
dying in 1622, was succeeded by his son,
Tuomas BroucuHam, Esq., of Scales, who served the office of
sheriff for Cumberland. He married Mary, daughter of Daniel
Fleming, Esq., of Skirwith (ancestor of the Flemings of Rydal,
created a baronet in 1705), and had issue (1) Henry, his successor ;
(2) Thomas, (3) Christopher, (4) William, (5) John, (6) Toby;
(1) Agnes, married to Anthony Wybergh, Esq., youngest son of
Thomas Wybergh, Esq., of Clifton Hall, Westmorland; and (2)
ee eee Ae ae
87
Mary. Mr. Brougham died in 1648, and was succeeded by his
son,
Henry Broucuam, of Scales, who enlarged his possessions
there, and greatly added to Scales Hall. By his first wife he had
four children: Thomas, Henry; Anne, born in 1683, died in
February, 1789, at the age of 106, having lived in the reigns of
seven sovereigns, viz.—Charles II., James II., William and Mary,
Anne, and the first three Georges. Neither of his sons survived
him. He married, secondly, Elizabeth, daughter and ultimately
sole heir of John Lamplugh, Esq., of Lamplugh, in Cumberland,
and had five sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Thomas,
was the Receiver General of Cumberland and Westmorland, who
died in 1716 sine proles. The four eldest sons having died sine
proles, he was succeeded eventually in his estates by his grandson,
Joun Broucuam, of Brougham in Westmorland, and of Scales
Hall and Highhead Castle, in Cumberland. He had issue two
daughters only, both of whom died without issue. On his own
death, in 1756, he was succeeded by his brother, .
Henry Broucua, of Brougham, who married Mary, daughter
of William Freman, D.D., and had issue,
I.—Henry, his heir.
II.—John, fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and rector of
Ballyhaise and Bailieborough, diocese of Kilmore, Ireland, married
17th of October, 1785, Sarah, daughter of James Scanlin, by Anne
Babington, his wife, and died on the 22nd of May, 1811, his widow
surviving until 24th of March, 1843. He had issue (1) John
Henry, died 28th of May, 1798; (2) Henry, born 18th of March,
1797, rector of Tallow, diocese of Waterford ; married 16th of
May, 1826, Catherine Anne Maria, daughter of Sir John Macartney,
Bart., by Catherine Hussey Burgh, daughter of Walter Hussey
‘Burgh, chief Baron of the Exchequer, distinguished in the Irish
Parliament. Henry Brougham died 3oth of January, 1831, leaving
issue, two sons, Henry William, born 27th of February, 1827; John
Richard, born 4th of August, 1829. (1) Anne; (2) Sarah, died 3rd
of February, 1808.
88
I.—Mary, married 1767, to Richard Meux, Esq., and had issue:
(1) Richard, married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Roxby, Esq.,
of Chapham Rise. (2) Henry, created a baronet in 1831. (3)
Thomas, died sive profes. (1) Mary, married to William St. Julian
Arabin, Serjeant-at-Law. (2) Fanny, married to Vicesimus Knox.
II.—Anne, married to George Aylmer, Esq., and had issue:
(1) George, married to Henrietta, daughter of Cuthbert Ellison,
Esq., of Hepburn, county Northumberland. (2) Thomas, a general
in the army. (3) Charles. (1) Anne.
IlI.—Rebecca, born in 1753, married 12th April, 1787, to
Richard Loundes, Esq., of Rose Hill, Dorking, county Surrey, and
died roth January, 1828, leaving issue: (1) Henry Dalston, born
zoth July, 1789; died 17th October, 1831. (2) William-Loftus,
born 16th March, 1793, one of Her Majesty’s Counsel. (3) Richard
John, born 11th January, 1798; died in July, 1798. (1) Rebe,
married to the Rev. James Randall, rector of Binfield, county
Berks. Mr. Brougham died 21st December, 1782, and his widow
in 1807, aged 93 years, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
HENRY BROUGHAM, Esq., of Brougham, born 18th June, 1742,
who married 22nd May, 1777, Eleanora, only child of the Rev.
James Syme, by Mary, sister of Robertson the historian, and had
issue :
Henry, First LorD BROUGHAM AND Vaux. James, born
16th January, 1780; member in the successive Parliaments of
1826, 1829, and 1831, for Tregony and Winchelsea, and in the
first reformed Parliament for Kendal, county Westmorland ; died
sine proles 24th December, 1833. Peter, in the army, killed in a
duel by Mr. Campbell, of Shawfield, in 1801. John, married
Margaret, daughter of James Rigg, Esq., of Morton, in Scotland,
and had issue: Henry, born 7th February, 1813, died roth October,
1839; Peter, born r2th June, 1819; John, born 27th May, 1821;
James Rigg, born 5th May, 1826; William, born 27th November,
1828, died 2nd April, 1829; Margaret, Eleanor, Katherine, Mary,
Lindsay. He died at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in October, 1829. His
widow died in December, 1839.
a
89
WILLIAM, the second peer. Mr. Brougham died 13th February,
1810, aged 68, and his widow 31st December, 1839, aged 89. He
was succeeded in his estates in Westmorland and Cumberland by
his son and heir,
HeEnrY BroucHaM. This eminent statesman, orator, philan-
thropist, philosopher, and writer, was born in St. Andrew’s Square,
Edinburgh, 19th September, 1778, and was educated at the High
School and University of Edinburgh. He was admitted a Scotch
advocate in 1800, and was called to the English Bar in 1808. He
was appointed Attorney-General to Queen Caroline in April, 1820,
and received a patent of precedence in 1827. He was successively
M.P. for Camelford, Winchelsea, Knaresborough, and Yorkshire.
He was Lord Chancellor from 1830 to 1834, and was, on the 22nd
November, 1830, created Baron Brougham and Vaux of Brougham,
county Westmorland; he obtained another patent, dated 22nd
March, 1860, giving him the title of Baron Brougham and Vaux,
of Brougham, county Westmorland, and of Highhead Castle,
county Cumberland, with limitation, in default of male issue, to
his brother, William Brougham, Esq., and the heirs male of his
body. He married, ist of April, 1819, Mary Annie, eldest daughter
of Thomas, fourth son of Sir Robert Eden, Bart., of West Auck-
land, county Durham, niece of the first Lords Auckland and
Henley, and widow of John Spalding, Esq., of the Holme,
Scotland, by whom (who died 12th January, 1865), he had issue
two daughters, Sarah Eleanor, born 1820, died an infant; and
Eleanor Louisa, born October, 1822, died 30th November, 1839.
His lordship was heir-general and representative of a branch of the
ancient and noble house of Vaux. He died at Cannes, in France,
7th May, 1868, and was succeeded according to the limitation of
the patent of 1860, by his brother, William, second Lord Brougham
and Vaux.
pie +
LEDS ROGT IH OHRCTS
91
REMINISCENCES IN THE STUDY OF NATURAL
HISTORY.
By TOM DUCKWORTH.
(Read at Carlisle. )
In this paper I have followed no regular system, but in a desultory
manner, simply give it as a collection of notes, taken from my
note-books ; short accounts of rambles, facts and incidents, which
have occurred to me in the many years I have devoted to the
study of nature. In looking back to the early days of my youth, I
sometimes think what a great advantage the young people of the
present day possess in the number of cheap books on nearly every
subject connected with natural history. In years long ago, many
a time have I puzzled my brain trying to fathom the secrets con-
nected with the study, and not possessing the requisite works of
reference. Still it may have been for my benefit, as it engendered
habits of observation, and made me rely more upon my own
capabilities. Often have I known the life histories of birds and
insects without ever knowing their generic names, until years after
IT read them in books. Still, even then, I could have added some-
thing fresh, something new, which had not been written before.
Carlisle has always been remarkable for the number of its
working naturalists. In the fifties, and long before, there were
_entomologists, botanists, and ornithologists, in every quarter of the
City. It is a pity there was no cheap, popular magazine at that
time devoted to the subject, as a mass of information has been
lost, simply for want of recording. I have now in my possession
an old herbal that belonged to my grandfather, who was an
enthusiastic naturalist, which was looked upon at that time asa
92
wonderful production by his colleagues, and they did some good
work by its aid, being the only book they possessed. At the
present day it is worthless as a botanical work, and can only be
treasured as a curiosity of days gone by, fully showing the dis-
advantages these men laboured under in the early part of the
present century. There were some keen naturalists in my early
youth ; it was nothing to walk to Barron Wood—a distance of
about twelve miles out and twelve in—for the purpose of sugaring
for insects, after our day’s work was done, and after a night spent
in the woods, to resume our occupation at six o’clock in the
morning. Distance was no object at that time ; we have known
parties of these old naturalists set off late on Saturday, walk all
night to the Lake District, and spend all day on Sunday collecting
plants, birds, and insects, and yet these enthusiasts had to walk
back again, so as to commence work on Monday morning. Some
of them were very clever men, real out-of-door observers, and who
thought nothing of staying out all night for the purpose of close
observation ; and if their information had only been given to the
public, a mass of interesting knowledge would have been added to
that already existing. Frequently we had the pleasure of joining
with these old hands in some of their expeditions, and it was very
interesting to hear them tell of their adventures in different parts
of the district, it helped to wile away many a weary tramp in the
dark as we were returning home.
One notable event is impressed on my memory, it was the
occasion of a severe thunderstorm, which overtook us on Blaze-
fell, while we were searching for certain beetles. The brilliant
flashes of lightning nearly blinded us. It was a magnificent sight,
as flash succeeded flash, and lit up the surrounding country as
bright as day, and the next moment was plunged into pitchy
darkness, a darkness which could be almost felt, as the old saying
goes. ‘The storm lasted about an hour and a half, and all the
time we were trying to shelter behind a stone wall from the
drenching torrents of rain, which poured down on our devoted
heads in a perfect deluge. We lit that great consoler, our pipes,
and enjoyed the fragrant weed under these damping circumstances
:
tag
93
as well as we could. Picture a blackness, and a fearful calmness ;
not a leaf or a blade of grass moved, and nature appeared as if at
a standstill. Then, in a moment, this awful silence was broken ;
a terrific peal of thunder burst overhead, as if the heavens had
split and were tumbling down, shaking the ground on which we
stood ; the lurid lightning blazed forth, and the valley below, farm
houses and cottages, appeared for an instant in a background of
fire, and in the next were extinguished in murky gloom. It passed
on, and returned again with redoubled force ; peal after peal rever-
berated along the hills, and fiash followed flash with remarkable
rapidity ; then all again settled into a silence more depressing than
the first, which was instantly followed by a perfect tornado of
wind and rain, making the trees groan again, as they bent swaying
and clashing to and fro in the tempest. We have seen a few
thunderstorms, and been out in them, but this one exceeded any.
It reminded us of accounts we have since read of those occurring
in the tropics.
Week end after week end, for how many years we would not
like to say, have we spent in the woods and fields. What rare
plants, ferns, mosses, fungi, lichens, birds, and insects have come
under our notice in those happy days, with congenial companions,
- some of whom are dead, others scattered over the four quarters of
the globe! We sometimes wonder if their hearts do not warm
when the inward eye of memory carries them back to the old
country, and the many enjoyable excursions we had in days gone
past. We well remember in 1853 or ’54, a number of us set off
to the High Stand Wood, in the latter part of April. It was a fast
day, during the Crimean war, and we had holiday from school.
We wandered through and through that large plantation ; the day
was exceedingly hot. After chasing insects, climbing trees, &c.,
_ we began to feel very thirsty, and I remember with what gusto we
drank at a dirty puddle of water we found in the recesses of the
wood. For, like Comus, we knew
Each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell, of that wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
94
I could not say how many nests we found on this occasion, but
I recollect taking two young Tawny Owls home, and was uncere-
moniously ordered out of the house with them. On our return we
passed through the village of Cotehill, and in the window of a
small shop we saw some of Carr’s biscuits; the total amount of
cash amongst the lot of us amounted to the sum of one penny.
One was deputed to go in and purchase two of the biscuits, but
they had apparently weathered in the aforesaid window for many
weeks, and in spite of our young teeth, we had to break them with
a stone and divide the fragments.
Boys, when young, have unbounded stomachs. Many a day
have we spent in the country with nothing to eat but what we
culled on the way—ears of wheat, hips and haws, cherries, straw-
berries, brambles, crabs, wild raspberries, sloes, nuts, the austere
fruit of the bird cherry, which we used to call “ heck berries,” and
finish up with a raw turnip for dessert. At that time we could
wander at cur own sweet will over places where now it would be
treason to enter. Freedom to the naturalist is being curtailed
every year, and I am afraid at last it will amount to observing on
the road sides.
Scotland © to O Kong o Henry © the o vito & O Henry © the © biti o
positu’ © est © Ano © diut © f¥lo © ceece.
Assuming this legend to have been of the same length as the tomb
I have here drawn the gap to scale, that the reader may the better
exercise his ingenuity in supplying the missing words. I can only
suggest that the words “forenenst Scotland” have reference to Lord
Thomas Dacre’s appointment as Warden of the Marches; which
however did not take place in the year 1500. Of what he was
“the fourth” I do not know; nor have I yet found any one who
can tell. The other legend has two gaps, which therefore cannot
be drawn to scale. But the missing words, or rather letters,
are to those which remain as four to three. The remaining
portions of this legend are
was > martes > to> Spr > Tham.
hich © Eltjabeth © vecessiv > XXt O vay O GES
August © The © pere o of O Gov O sElecccexdt.
The lady here commemorated was Elizabeth, grand-daughter and
heiress of Ralph the last Lord Greystoke. The date of her
123
marriage with Lord Thomas Dacre, with whom she eloped by
night from Brougham castle, was 1506. The tomb which once
_ bore the aforesaid legends is described in vol. iv, pp. 506-7, of the
Cumb. and West. Arch. Transactions, and in a paper on the
“Monuments in the Choir and Transepts of Lanercost Abbey” in
_ vol, xii, pp. 331-2 of the same Transactions.
26 JAN. 93
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