ON LAKE-BASINS OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 

 OF WINDERMERE. 



( The substance of a Lecture given before the Literary and Scientific Society 

 of Ambleside, January ()th, 1885J 



By W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A. 



I. Problem of the Conditions of Basin-formation. After learning 

 all one can from accessible manuals and magazines, there still 

 remains a perplexity involving the origin of Lake-basins. It may 

 be that the authorities, to whom we owe unparalleled opportunities 

 for understanding the physical history of our country, are reserving 

 the explanation of these, as of other difficulties. But meanwhile, 

 one asks, "Can any rule or reason be alleged, as fixing the 

 positions and proportions of Lake-basins ? What gave such and 

 such a lake its site, and its size?" 



Suppose we climbed the hills near Bowness, and as we looked 

 up and down Windermere were informed — "Once there was a 

 time when all this ten-mile-long basin was not excavated. Before 

 the great Ice Age the land lay flat, or nearly so,— a plateau 

 swept bare by the breakers of the sea. Then came glaciers, sHding 

 down from the higher parts, shod with sharp stones ; grinding and 

 grooving the earth so powerfully and so persistently that they 

 hollowed out Windermere." To which the learner might answer,— 

 " And was all the lower end of Windermere filled up to the brim 

 with rock, before the glacier came?" "No doubt." "Then why 

 did not the glacier carve its channel down Winster-way, instead of 

 curving round to Newby Bridge? There was nothing to prevent 

 it, and it would have taken a straighter course too. And why is 

 yonder little tarn perched just where it is— so awkwardly on a 

 broken hillside? and why are these peat-mosses,— which of course 

 are real lake-basins, though small and choked with peat,— why are 



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