On them, one finds oneself at once in a
garden; amid the noblest of timber, wheat, roots, grass which is
green through the driest summers, and, in the western counties,
cider-orchards laden with red and golden fruit. I know, throughout
northern Europe, no such charming scenery, for quiet beauty and solid
wealth, as that of the New Red marls; and if I wished to show a
foreigner what England was, I should take him along them, from
Yorkshire to South Devon, and say--There. Is not that a country
worth living for,--and worth dying for if need be?
Another reason which I have for dealing with the New Red sandstone is
this--that (as I said just now) over great tracts of England,
especially about the manufacturing districts, the town-geologist will
find it covered immediately by the boulder clay.
The townsman, finding this, would have a fair right to suppose that
the clay was laid down immediately, or at least soon after, the
sandstones or marls on which it lies; that as soon as the one had
settled at the bottom of some old sea, the other settled on the top
of it, in the same sea.
A fair and reasonable guess, which would in many cases, indeed in
most, be quite true. But in this case it would be a mistake. The
sandstone and marls are immensely older than the boulder-clay.
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