95 
a position at a considerable elevation above the level of the sea. 
If this was not the case, then its continued existence as a lake 
through so long a series of depressions must have been due to great 
local irregularities of the downward movement of the earth’s crust. 
After the sea gained admittance here we know that the Lias at least 
was deposited ; and I see no reason whatever why the Oolites and 
other Secondary Rocks should not have overspread these parts as 
well. At any rate, and whatever view be taken, it is tolerably 
certain that this part was again submerged, and it may have been 
submerged to a considerable depth. 
THE THIRD PLAIN. 
Again the cycle of change brought about different conditions. 
The steady subsidence of the land that had been going on for 
untold ages—if we may trust the estimate of the time furnished by 
observation upon the modern rate of change in the organic world—— 
once again gave place to an equally slow movement in an upward 
direction. History is said to repeat itself. Geology, which is only 
history extended into the remotest periods of the past, seems to 
repeat itself also. The changes that took place at the close of the 
Carboniferous period were repeated at the period I now refer to. 
At some time after the formation of the Lias, and probably at a 
period following the deposition of the Oolites, the newly-formed 
rocks were once more brought to the level of the breakers, and 
planed off as before. The inequality of movement was repeated, 
and one at least of the centres of upheaval coincided, or nearly 
coincided, with the centres of upheaval of old. As before, the area 
that is now the Lake District went up faster than its surroundings. 
It suffered also denudation to a great extent. All the rocks that 
had covered it—the newer Secondaries, the New Red, and the 
Carboniferous rocks, where these existed—were one after the other 
swept clean away ; and the surface of the rocks exposed in conse- 
quence was shorn off to one nearly uniform level, which bore no 
relation to, and was in no way affected by, the diversities in structure 
and hardness of the rocks that composed it. I believe that it was 
at this period that the plain represented by the general summit 
