40 
It was difficult to see how such hollows could have been formed 
either by mere weather-action, by running water, by the sea, by special 
depression, by rock-disturbance, or the formation of gaping fissures. 
‘Could the onward movement of the glacier ice have scooped out these 
shallow basins ? (Ramsay). 
The following points were in favour of such a solution to the 
question. The depth of the lakes was very slight as compared with the 
thickness of glacier-ice which pressed down the valleys. The deepest 
parts of the lakes were precisely at those points at which, from the 
confluence of several ice-streams or the narrowing of the valley, the 
onward pressure of the ice must have been greatest. 
In the case of such lakes as Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, 
the ice had produced a long and shallow groove along the bed of a flat- 
bottomed pan-shaped valley. In the case of such as Buttermere and 
Crummock-water, it was a round-bottomed valley that had been 
deepened. Hence the reason, probably, why the latter lakes were 
deeper than the former. 
Since the formation of these rock-basins they had been greatly 
filled up by sediment and gravel brought down by the streams and 
rivers from the hills around. In several cases one originally long 
lake—such as Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite united, or Buttermere 
and Crummock—had been filled up in the middle in this way, and 
thus two separate lakes had arisen. 
After a cordial vote of thanks, proposed in eulogistic terms by 
the PRESIDENT (Mr. Haselwood), 
Mr. G. SCOTT inquired if there were any shells among the beds 
of sand and gravel referred to ? 
Mr. WARD replied that none had yet been found ; but when they 
considered that there were many such deposits in Wales, which had been 
thoroughly examined, and only in one instance successfully, it was not 
to be wondered at that he, by a slight examination of those in Cum- 
berland, had not found any Shells. 
Mr. E. PANKHURST asked what was the greatest height at which 
there were any signs of glacier action among the Cumberland Hills? 
He knew that the idea that the Lake of Geneva had been hollowed 
out by ice had considerably staggered a great number of geologists. 
