334 Geological Society. 



towards Cockermouth, though there are no indications of them on 

 Fryer's map. 



Near the centre of the lake district are extensive medial mo- 

 raines on the shoulder of the hill called the Braw Top, and formed 

 by glaciers at the junction of the valley of the Greta with that of 

 Derwent Water. 



Dr. Buckland had no opportunity of seeking for polished and stri- 

 ated surfaces in the high mountain valleys of the lake district ; but 

 he found them on a recently exposed surface of grey wacke in Dr. 

 Arnold's garden at Fox Howe near Ambleside ; likewise near the 

 slate quarry at Rydal ; and on newly bared rocks by the side of the 

 road ascending from Grassmere to the Pass of Wy thburn ; he is also 

 of opinion that many of the round and mammillated rocks at the 

 bottom of the valley, leading from Helvellyn by the above localities 

 to Windermere, owe their form to glacial action. 



The remarkable assemblage of boulders of Criffle granite at Shalk- 

 beck, between Carlisle and Cockermouth, Dr. Buckland conceives 

 may have been transported across the Solway Frith on floating 

 masses of ice, in the same manner as the Scandinavian blocks are 

 supposed to have been conveyed across the Baltic to the plains of 

 Northern Germany. 



Dispersion of Shap Fell Granite by Ice. — The difficulties which 

 had long attended every attempt to explain the phsenomena of the 

 distribution of the Shap Fell boulders, Dr. Buckland considers, are 

 entirely removed by the application of the glacial theory. One of 

 the principal of these difficulties has been to account for their disper- 

 sion by the action of water ; northwards along the valley, descend- 

 ing from Shap Fell to Shap and Penrith ; southwards in the direc- 

 tion of Kendal and Morecombe Bay ; and eastward, over the high 

 table-land of Stainmoor Forest, into the valley of the Tees, as far 

 as Darlington. A glacier descending northwards from the Fell 

 would, on the contrary, carry with it, Dr. Buckland says, blocks to 

 the village of Shap, and strew them thickly over the space where 

 they are now found ; another, taking a southern course, would 

 drop the boulders on the hills and valleys over which the road de- 

 scends by High Borough Bridge to Kendal ; and a third great gla- 

 cier, proceeding eastwards betwixt Crosby, Ravensworth, and Orton, 

 would cross transversely the upper part of the valley of the Eden, 

 near Brough, and accumulate piles of ice against the opposite escarp- 

 ment until they overtopped its lowest depression in Stainmoor 

 Forest, and disgorged their moraines into the valleys of the Greta 

 and the Tees. There are abundant proofs. Dr. Buckland states, of 

 the existence of this glacier in large mud and' boulder moraines, in 

 the ascent of the gorge between Shap Fell and Birbeck Fell, and in 

 the furrows and striae, as well as the mammillated forms of the 

 rocks at the portals of the gorge, particularly on the northern side. 

 In the physical structure of this neighbourhood. Dr. Buckland 

 points out other conditions which would have facilitated the accu- 

 mulation of glaciers, as the lofty mountains of Yardale Head, which 

 overtop Shap Fell on the north-west, and the still higher mountains 



