156 Rankin : TJic Peat-Moors of Lonsdale. 



for some time, gave an accumulation many feet in thickness 

 of Sphagnum and Eriophorum peat. The marl at the deepest 

 hollow of this lake is to a large extent composed of Limnaea 

 pereger* lacking the variety of the Hawes Water deposits. 

 Traces of similar peat moors lying above lake-marl may be 

 seen below Norber Fell, in Clapdale and Crvmimockdale. In 

 the same quarter, Austwick Moss shows a fairly extensive 

 development of heath moor, though there are not infrequent 

 traces of the former swamp moor associations. A short waj^ 

 across the limits of Lonsdale, other moors as Cocket Moss, near 

 Giggleswick, and Helwith Moss, below Moughton Fells in 

 Ribblesdale, show good development of both types of moors. 



Littoral Peat Moors. 



Passing from these comparatively small and generally 

 scattered peat moors, we come to the consideration of the great 

 and continuous peat moors, about the coast plains of Furness 

 and the neighbouring part of Westmorland. (Fig. 3). 



Following upon the Ice Age, there has been an extensive 

 silting up of inlets out of Morecambe Bay, as well as of the 

 Bay itself. The alluvial flats slowly rising by accretion, first 

 above the average high water mark, and then above the limits 

 of ordinary spring tides, must, as may be seen to-day being 

 enacted between Carnforth and Silverdale, have passed under the 

 vegetation first of salt, and later of fresh-water marshes. The 

 land drainage by small streams would be irregular, easily 

 deviated, and often checked, so that the state of the alluvial 

 flats would become eminently suited for the growth of all 

 manner of swamps. Extensive marshy meadows of tall reed- 

 grasses and sedges, diversified by occasional open meres, 

 swarming with every variety of animal life, molluscan, insect 

 and avian, such must have been the aspect of much of low- 

 lying Furness, as it was without doubt, of southern Lancashire 

 into comparatively recent times. And the records of the peat 

 are sufficient sanction for the extension of this known landscape 

 to our Lonsdale sea-valleys. Altogether, during the esrly 

 stages of the covering of the estuarine silt with vegeta.ble 

 remains, there must have been the closest resemblance with the 

 Fens about the Wash opening. 



'Geographical Distribution of MoUusca in S. Lonsdale,' Kendal, Dean 

 and Rankin, Naturalist 1909. 



Naturalist, 



