And such, I think, we can find in
the so-called New Red sandstone, which, with its attendant marls,
covers a vast tract--and that a rich and busy one--of England. From
Hartlepool and the mouth of the Tees, down through Yorkshire and
Nottinghamshire; over the manufacturing districts of central England;
down the valley of the Severn; past Bristol and the Somersetshire
flats to Torquay in South Devon; up north-westward through Shropshire
and Cheshire; past Liverpool and northward through Lancashire;
reappearing again, north of the Lake mountains, about Carlisle and
the Scotch side of the Solway Frith, stretches the New Red sandstone
plain, from under which everywhere the coal-bearing rocks rise as
from a sea. It contains, in many places, excellent quarries of
building-stone; the most famous of which, perhaps, are the well-known
Runcorn quarries, near Liverpool, from which the old Romans brought
the material for the walls and temples of ancient Chester, and from
which the stone for the restoration of Chester Cathedral is being
taken at this day. In some quarters, especially in the north-west of
England, its soil is poor, because it is masked by that very boulder-
clay of which I spoke in my last paper. But its rich red marls,
wherever they come to the surface, are one of God's most precious
gifts to this favoured land.
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