35^ ©£0lo(jg. 



Granite and Syenite. — Granite^ varying in colour and 

 composition, is protruded through the Green Slate and 

 Porphyry in large masses in Eskdale, Wastdale, and Was- 

 dale Crags, near Shap. From these Granite rocks have been 

 derived most of the erratic boulders distributed over the 

 north of England, as far east as the sea-coast, and as far 

 south as Staffordshire. In Peel Park, at Manchester, an 

 institution worth visiting, is a large mass of granite bearing an 

 inscription which purports that it was found in that neigh- 

 bourhood, whither it had been brought, by the operations 

 of nature, from the parent rock near Ravenglass, in Cum- 

 berland. It is now generally agreed that, at a period very 

 remote, when the climate was much colder, and most of this 

 country was submerged by the sea, the lake mountains form- 

 ing a rugged island, these detached masses of stone were 

 borne away from their native beds enclosed in ice, and 

 dropped in the situations where they now occur. The 

 beautiful stone called Syenite, is protruded through the green 

 slate, as well as through the earlier rock, on both sides of 

 Ennerdale and extending eastward from that lake to Butter- 



The Coniston Limestone extends along the south-east 

 border of the great middle deposit of slate-rock, with many 

 breaks and twists, from Millom, by Coniston and Winander- 

 mere, across High Furness and part of Westmorland, to 

 Shap Fells. This represents the Coniston Limestone, a 

 formation which excites much interest amongst geologists 

 from being the line of division between two great systems, 

 and from containing fossil remains in great abundance and 

 variety, which may be obtained with little trouble where the 

 rock is exposed above the farm of Dixon Ground, in Church 

 Coniston. Its numerous * faults ' and dislocations shew that 



