Denudation of the Lake District. 471 



disturbance of the carboniferous system. There is also, however, 

 another law pointed out by that theory, viz. that a system of dislo- 

 cations may also exist having the same directions as the strike of 

 the disturbed beds. Consequently those faults which are in the 

 direction of the strike of the beds of the older formations, may, 

 according to this theory, be assigned to the epoch of the elevation 

 and dislocation of those beds. The great faults of the Dudden, 

 Coniston Water, and Troutbeck are of this class, since their direc- 

 tions coincide very nearly with the mean strike of the older beds. 

 Theory, therefore, leaves the epoch of these faults undetermined ; 

 nor has the point been settled by observation, since there is no 

 direct evidence to prove whether these faults have affected the 

 mountain limestone or not. 



It may be thought that the mountain limestone must have been 

 more decidedly disturbed by the great faults above mentioned had 

 they been produced at the epoch of the disturbance of the carboni- 

 ferous system. It must be remarked, however, that the direct evi- 

 dence of these faults is found only at a considerable distance from the 

 existing portions of mountain limestone, and that if they originated in 

 that central and local elevation to which the actual configuration of 

 this tract must be due (at whatever epoch it took place), the diver- 

 ging faults, however great near the centre of the district, would dis- 

 appear as they approached its boundary. The author, however, is 

 disposed to refer the four great faults above mentioned to the 

 disturbance of the older rocks. They appear to have produced 

 such enormous, relative displacements of the masses on opposite 

 sides of them, as may be more probably referrible to the more in- 

 tense action of the elevatory forces which disturbed the older 

 formations than to that which subsequently took up the mountain 

 limestone. 



But, it may be urged, the directions of these great dislocations 

 do not coincide with that of the actual strike of the older beds. The 

 author shows that if this coincidence existed (as it ought according 

 to theory) after the elevation of the older beds, but previously to 

 that of the limestone, it could not possibly exist after the latter ele- 

 vation in those parts in which the deviation from such coincidence 

 is now recognised, viz. along the band of limestone interstratified 

 with the older beds, and crossing the above faults in its course 

 from the Dudden to Troutbeck. To one who has a distinct con- 

 ception of the geometry of the subject, it will easily appear that the 

 elevation which gave its present position to the beds of mountain 

 limestone, and (as the-author conceives) its dome-like configuration 

 to the district, would necessarily give to the strike of the beds 

 along the above line, a direction approximating more to east and 

 west than the original strike, while it would have no effect on the 

 direction of a vertical fault as determined by its intersection with 

 the surface. This accounts for the actual difference between the 

 directions of the above faults and that of the strike. 



Upon the whole, the author considers it probable that the four 



