HAKDVVICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



121 



SCENERY OF THE LxiKE DISTEICT GEOLOGICALLY 



CONSIDERED. 



By J. CLIFTON WARD, F.G.S. 

 (Of Her Majesty's Geological Survey.) 



H E origiu and 

 growth of the love 

 of fine scenery is an 

 exceedingly inter- 

 esting and curious 

 as 



Liviuf 



study 



we do, in an age 

 when all classes 

 more or less appre- 

 ciate the pictur- 

 is difficult for us to 

 that a time existed 

 when the grand and beautiful 

 in nature awoke but an occa- 

 sional response in the mind of 

 even educated men. Yet is it 

 a matter of history that, little 

 more than a century ago, those 

 very scenes which now yearly 

 call forth the admiration of 

 thousands of tourists, were 

 branded by men of cultiva- 

 tion and intellect as gloomy, 

 hideous, and horrible. 



Macaulay tells us that Cap- 

 tain Burt, about the year 1730, was one of the first 

 Englishmen who caught a glimpse of Highland sce- 

 nery, and he speaks of the mountains thus: — "Their 

 deformity, he said, was such that the most sterile 

 plains seemed lovely by comparison. Fine weather, 

 he complained, only made bad worse ; for the clearer 

 the day, the more disagreeably did those misshapen 

 masses of gloomy brown and dirty purple aftect the 

 eye. What a contrast, he exclaimed, between these 

 horrible prospects and the beauties of Eichmond 

 Hill 1 " How are we astonished also when we fiud 

 that even such a man as Oliver Goldsmith, when 

 No. 102. 



exploring the Highlands more than a century ago, 

 failed to recognize their beauty. Macaulay says : 

 "He was disgusted by the hideous wilderness, 

 and declared tliat he greatly preferred the charming 

 country round Leyden, the vast expanse of verdant 

 meadow, and the villas with their statues and 

 grottos, trim flower-bcds,''and rectilinear avenues." 

 An ardent angler who skirted the Highland 

 district writes thus of it in 1694; :— "It is a part o? 

 the creation left undressed ; rubbish thrown aside 

 W'hen the magniticent fabric of the world was 

 created ; as void of form as the natives are indigent 

 of morals and good manners." If such were the 

 feelings of observant minds a century or two ago, 

 with regard to what is generally recognized as the 

 finest scenery in the United Kingdom, it may be 

 almost taken for granted that our English Lake 

 district could not have been much appreciated. 

 How little this district was then frequented, may be 

 gathered from one of the poet Gray's letters, dated 

 October, 17G7. Speaking of the hamlet of Grange, 

 at the entrance to Borrowdalc, he says : — " The- 

 dale opens about four miles higher till you come to- 

 Sea- whaite ; all farther access is here barred to 

 prying mortals, only there is a little path winding- 

 over the fells, and for some weeks in the year 

 passable to the dalesmen ; but the mountains 

 know well that these innocent people will nor 

 reveal the mysteries of their ancient kingdom, ' the 

 reign of Chaos and Old Night : ' only I learned 

 that this dreadful road, dividing again, leads one 

 branch to Ravenglas, and the other to Hawks- 

 head." 



Another traveller, in the year 1772, speaks of a 

 part of Boriowdale thus :— "This valley, so replete 

 with hideous grandeur, is known by the name o1 

 the ' Straits of Borrowdalc,' while Derwentwate'j 



