149 



certained that the Lake District of Cumberland and Westmoreland 

 bears incontestable traces of the former existence of glaciers origi- 

 nating in its high grounds, and passing down the valleys. In Bor- 

 rowdale, in Ulleswater, in Thirlmere, in Grasmere, and Windermere, 

 and in the vale of the Kent, rounded hummocks of rock, presenting 

 an exposed side up the valley, and a rough side in the contrary di- 

 rection, are abundantly seen. Flat surfaces of rock, finely smoothed 

 and striated in the line of the valley, are presented at Grange in 

 Borrowdale, at Patterdale in Ulleswater, and at Staveley in Kent> 

 dale. In many places, detrital accumulations of precisely the cha- 

 racter of the moraines of the Alps, and of a brown colour, are found; 

 but they have not been seen in any definite arrangement suggesting 

 the idea of terminal or lateral moraines, excepting in one instance 

 near the head of the Thirlmere valley, where a long mound of blocks 

 rests on the hill-face, in the angle between the principal and a side 

 valley, — a form exactly resembling the ancient moraine of the 

 extended Glacier des Bois, at Tines in Chamouni. At Dunmail- 

 raise, which is a col or summit out of the range of any possible gla- 

 cier of the district, there is a deep accumulation of clayey matter 

 and blocks, which the author thinks probably of greater antiquity 

 than the glaciers of the district, and referable to earlier phenomena 

 of a kindred character. 



TlTe author adverted to Snowdonia, in North Wales, as an an- 

 cient glacier district, of precisely the same character as that of the 

 Cumbrian Lakes ; there being here seven radiating valleys, all con- 

 taining the usual proofs of the passage of ancient glaciers. These 

 have been described several years ago, and now Professor Ramsay 

 discovers the remarkable fact that the northern drift, which abounds 

 in neighbouring districts, is here only found in out-of-the-way cor- 

 ners, and in elevated situations. 



Mountain regions so limited and definite as those of North Wales 

 and Cumbria do not exist in Scotland ; but the author has never- 

 theless found proofs of local systems of glaciers almost equally well 

 defined. He points to one instance in Assynt, Sutherlandshire, 

 where there is proof of one glacier passing along through the vale in 

 which Loch Assynt lies, and out to sea at Storr ; while another, 

 descending from the same elevated ground at Ben-Uie and Bon- 

 More, moved along the valley which contains the estuary of Kyle 

 Skow. 



k2 



