354 .©eologg. 



Bannisdale or Bretherdale Slate, reaching from Ravenstone- 

 dale to Duddon Sands, and from Morecambe Bay to Win- 

 dermere Village and Hawkshead. It consists of masses of 

 dark slate intersected and broken by bands of quartz and 

 beds of grit and limestone. Unlike the other two great 

 slate divisions, it has formed no hills of any magnitude, 

 though it has been greatly disturbed and contorted, and con- 

 tains a considerable part of the lakes of Winander, Esth- 

 waite, and Coniston. A few fossils are found in it, and it is 

 perforated frequently by dykes of igneous rock. 



KiRKBY Moor Flags. — Another formation of slatestone, 

 called Hay Fell, or Kirkby Moor Flags, occupies the line of 

 country between Kendal and Kirkby Lonsdale, and consists 

 of flagstones varying in structure and* colour, and mingled 

 irregularly with grit and other rocks. This group affords 

 great numbers of fossils, and is also extensively perforated 

 by basaltic and porphyrytic dykes. 



Old Red Sandstone. — The most considerable patches 

 of Old Red Sandstone and Conglomerate occur near Shap 

 and on the Cumberland side of the lower reach of Ullswater, 

 forming the fells in the former locality, and the hills of Dun- 

 mallet and Mell Fell in the latter. These formations owe 

 their origin to attrition by the sea of the earHer rocks ; the 

 cohesion of the coarse fragments constituting the stone 

 called Conglomerate, and that of the fine particles, the 

 Sandstone. This, and their position, as related to the slate- 

 rock, prove that these deposits were formed at a period sub- 

 sequent, not only to the formation of the slate groups, but 

 also to the disruption by the great Plutonic influences, — a 

 striking demonstration of the antiquity of these vast systems. 

 Unlike the Old Red Sandstone of other parts of Britain, 

 that of the Lake District is said to exhibit no fossil remains. 



