GEOLOGY. 273 



of the two opposite elements, fire aud water, consisting, as it does, 

 of Plutonic masses, of various structure, alternated and inter- 

 blended with large deposits of aqueous rock, possessing more or 

 less of the properties of slate. The prevailing colour of this slate, 

 when not affected by igneous influences, is, as its name imports, 

 chiefly a fine light green. That after, and probably during its 

 formation, it has undergone a succession of the most inconceivable 

 convulsions is evident, from the frequent distortion of its stratifi- 

 cation, the wild and rugged character of its crags and precipices, 

 and the altitude of some portions over others in the same vicinity. 

 Scawfell Pikes for instance, rising nearly four thousand feet above 

 the bed of Wast water. It is also said to contain few or no fossils, 

 but abounds supereminently in beautiful and valuable mineral 

 productions, as will be shewn hereafter. Besides the main deposit 

 of the green slate to the south, a considerable extent of it occu- 

 pies the northern border of the older rock, lying between that and 

 the Carboniferous series. 



Geanite and Syenite. — Granite, varying in colour and 

 composition, is protruded through this rock in large masses in 

 Eskdale, Wastdale, and Wasdale Crags, near Shap. From these 

 Granite rocks have been derived most of the erratic bowlders dis- 

 tributed 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 neighbourhood, 

 whither it had been brought, by the operations of nature, from 

 the parent rock near Ravenglass, in Cumberland. 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 forming 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 Buttermere. 



The Coniston Lime Stone extends along the south-east 



S 



