39 
FEBRUARY 13TH. 
ORDINARY MEETING.—MR. J. CLIFTON WARD 
ON THE SCENERY OF THE ENGLISH LAKE 
DISTRICT, GEOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. 
No thoughtful person could look at the varied scenery of the 
Lake district without asking, Were all the types of scenery formed at 
once by the “I will” of the All-Powerful, or elaborated gradually in 
the great workshop of N ature,—by the action of those laws ordained 
by the great First Cause? If the latter, what were those laws, and 
were they still in operation? In the first place, was the rocky ma- 
terial forming all the varied types of scenery the same? Upon ex- 
amination, it was found that the low hills which encircled the district 
were formed of alternations of limestone and sandstone; smooth 
Skiddaw, of dark clay slate, an old mud deposit ; the still more lofty 
Scawfell, craggy and precipitous, consisted of hard rock—a stratified 
- volcanic ash ; the hills round Stony Tarn and north of the Esk were of 
granite ; the mysterious conical hill Mell Fell (north of Ullswater) was 
a conglomerate, and the soft grassy plains nestlins between the moun- 
tains were formed of soft river mud and loose sand and gravel, evenly 
spread out. 
The next question to be asked is, what are the agen*s which pro- 
duce scenery as a whole 2 
The only possible ones were the denuding action of the 
sea along coast lines; the denuding power of the various 
atmospheric agencies (including the chemical and mechanical 
action of the air, and running water, and, as regarded the 
mechanical, of frost), and the violent upheaval of the rocky matter 
by an action from below. With regard to the action of the sea, it 
was evident that it could not produce the minutiz of scenic detail, 
though it might as it were rough-hew the block of earth and so pre- 
pare it for the action of the other agents. Thechemical and 
_ mechanical action of the atmosphere was more important and exten- 
sive than might be supposed. Greenstone became soft and crumbling 
by the action of the air, chemical decomposition taking place ; lime- 
stone became completely honeycombed by the solvent power of the 
_ Carbonated rain water ; and sandstone speedily became weathered by 
_ the atmosphere. If the particles of silica were held together by a cal- 
A careous material the rain-water readily dissolved it ; but, if by a 
‘Siliceous the stone resisted disintegration to a greater extent. Some of 
the stones of the so-called “ Macduft’s Castle,” built of the red sand- 
