NA TURE 



545 



THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1877 



THE GEOLOGY OF THE LAKE COUNTRY 



The Geology of the Northern Part of the English Lake 

 District. Memoirs of the Geological Sitrvey of Eng- 

 land and Wales. By J. C. Ward, F.G.S. (London : 

 Longmans, 1876.) 



WHEN the staff of the Government Geological 

 Survey first entered upon their labours, the 

 Director, Sir H. de la Beche, saw very clearly that the 

 work with which he was entrusted would be very imper- 

 fectly perfonned if he limited himself to the publication 

 of geological maps and sections alone. He therefore 

 gave orders that whenever from time to time sufficient 

 portions of the country had been examined, descriptions 

 of their geology should be issued, in which such details 

 as could not be inserted on the maps should be recorded, 

 and questions of theoretical and practical interest should 

 be discussed. The Memoirs published in compliance 

 with this regulation by Sir Henry himself and his coad- 

 jutors Phillips, Ramsay, Forbes, Hooker, Playfair, and 

 others, are lasting witnesses both of the wisdom of the 

 regulation itself and of the skill and energy with which 

 the work of the Survey was carried on. 



Then there came a time when the publication of expla- 

 natory memoirs was for a while dropped altogether, and 

 so it happens that in many districts of the highest 

 interest and importance, as for instance the Dorsetshire 

 Coast, the Carboniferous Limestone country of Derby- 

 shire, and the great coalfields of Derbyshire and North 

 Staffordshire, we miss those descriptions which are else- 

 where such a boon to the geological student, and the 

 work of the Survey becomes shorn of half its useful- 

 ness. 



When the publication of descriptive memoirs was 

 resumed they took the form of small pamphlets, good 

 as far as they went, but of the slenderest dimen- 

 sions and almost niggardly in their details, in which 

 for instance the geology of Charnwood Forest is dis- 

 missed in three pages, and eighteen pages are con- 

 sidered enough for the illustration of the important coal- 

 field of Wigan and St. Helens. It is impossible to avoid 

 contrasting these scanty bundles of notes with the ex- 

 haustive detail and broad scientific treatment that charac- 

 terise the earlier publications of the Survey. 



Of late years, however, there has been a welcome 

 return to the old traditions which has resulted in the 

 production of the admirable monographs on the Geology 

 of Rutland, the Weald of Kent and Sussex, and the 

 London Basin. The memoir now before us on the 

 "Geology of the Northern Part of the Enghsh Lake Dis- 

 trict " is fully entitled to take rank with these latest pro- 

 ductions of the Survey. It is curious, however, to find in 

 it what looks like evidence of the existence in certain quar- 

 ters of a sort of hankering after the vastly inferior class of 

 memoirs which formed for a long time the staple of the 

 Survey issues. In his Introductory Notice the Director, 

 Mr. Bristow, thinks it necessary to apologise for the length 

 to which the description has run, and to give a reason why 

 the work " has been allowed to exceed the usual limits to 

 Vol. xv.^No. 391 



which the explanations of such small areas as those com- 

 prised in quarter sheets have hitherto extended." We 

 can assure the Director that he may make his mind easy 

 on this point, for no one possessing even the most limited 

 geological tastes and acquirements will find the book in 

 any way too long ; the only fear will be whether, from 

 anxiety to cut down the memoir to regulation size, details 

 and explanations that can be ill spared may not have 

 been sacrificed. It will be an evil day for the Survey when 

 it exchanges the scientific zeal which has hitherto so 

 honourably distinguished its members, for a spirit in 

 which devotion to official routine comes first and a desire 

 for the spread of geological knowledge holds a subordi- 

 nate place. 



But absit omen ! and a work like this furnishes good 

 grounds for the hope that it never will be so. It might 

 have been thought that the labours of Sedgwick and 

 other eminent geologists had left little for their successors 

 to do among the mountains and dells of Cumbria, but 

 Mr. Ward has shown that there are many points yet 

 remaining to be cleared up, and he has brought to bear 

 on their elucidation the more refined methods and superior 

 accuracy of the geology of the present day. He has 

 investigated and admirably illustrated the microscopic 

 character of many of the rocks ; and though it is scarcely 

 possible in the present state of our knowledge to deter- 

 mine exactly the geological bearing and value of some of 

 his results, there are others whose great importance is 

 even now obvious. In the case, for example, of some 

 rocks which the naked eye cannot distinguish in hand 

 specimens from flinty traps, microscopic examination 

 confirms the conclusion arrived at on broad geological 

 grounds that they are highly altered volcanic ashes. The 

 descriptions of other altered rocks throw great light on 

 the difficult question of metamorphism. The Skiddaw 

 district is peculiarly interesting on account of the close 

 parallel which its rocks present to the metamorphic beds 

 of the Pyrenees so admirably worked out by Fuchs. We 

 cannot but regret, however, that the papers which Mr. 

 Ward has contributed on this subject to the Geological 

 Society have not been more fully embodied in the pre- 

 sent volume ; a Survey memoir should aim at being a 

 complete vade-mecum for the local geologist, and it is not 

 every one in the wilds of Cumberland who has access to 

 the pages of the Quarterly Journal of the Society. 



Perhaps the most generally interesting features in the 

 work are the account of the volcanic products with the 

 localisation of the vents from which they were discharged, 

 and the description of the glacial phenomena of the dis- 

 trict. The author has with great skill used his experience 

 of modern volcanic countries to make the old ruined 

 Cumbrian volcanoes tell the tale of their whereabouts 

 and performances. The glacial phenomena are worked 

 out with singular thoroughness, and strong evidence is 

 brought forward in favour of the " great submergence " 

 on which Mr. James Geikie has thrown such considerable 

 doubt. 



It is dangerous for an outsider to difierlfrom an observer 

 who has spent so much time and spent it so well in work- 

 ing out the geology of a particular dibtrict, but there are 

 two points, and two points that to a certain extent hang 

 together, on which we must confess we are not altogether 

 satisfied. These are the absence of any unconformity 



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