CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES. 677 



to the circumstance that the discussion was held at a distance from the 

 district and that the audience was gathered from all parts of the British 

 Isles it was considered advisable that the national and even world-wide 

 importance of the English Lakeland scenery should be made clear by- 

 addresses on the physical geography and literary associations of the 

 district before proceeding to the paper on regional planning. 



Geography of the English Lake District. 

 By Dr. Hugh Robert Mill. 



A circle of fifteen miles radius drawn from a centre on the slope of Dunmail Raise 

 touches the north end of Bassenthwaite Water and the south end of Windermere and 

 includes all the other lakes of the district and practically all the mountains and fells. 

 The land beyond the fifteen-mile circle (except for a junction with the Pennine Upland 

 on the east) is low, spreading to the Solway on the north, the Irish Sea on the west 

 and Morecambe Bay on the south. The highest summits (each 3,000 feet) within the 

 circle include Scafell Pike towards the west, Skiddaw in the north and Helvellyn in 

 the east, each forming the centre of a partially isolated group of ancient pre-carboni- 

 ferous and volcanic rocks of a highly complicated structure. Unity is given to the 

 complex whole by a system of twelve long, often sinuous, valleys radiating outwards 

 and showing practically no relation to the geology. They probably represent drainage 

 lines originally incised on a dome of vanished rocks elevated in Tertiary times and 

 gradually deepened nearly to base level, leaving between them twelve triangular 

 tongues of elevated land sloping and widening and flattening outwards, which have 

 been sculptured by glacial ice and weather into a variety of forms corresponding to 

 the diversity in texture and hardness of the rocks. Looking from the air above the 

 centre and carrying the eye around the horizon clockwise one would see the valleys 

 of Thirlmere, Ullswater, Haweswater and the Kent diverging from each other at 

 angles of approximately 45° from north to south-east ; then the valleys of Winder- 

 mere, Coniston Water, the Duddon and the Esk each separated from its neighbour by 

 an angle of 30° between south and south-west. The radiate system is continued 

 from south-west to north-west by the valleys of Wastwater, Ennerdale Water and 

 Buttermere-and-Crummock Water, the angles between which are only 15°, and the 

 circle is completed by the valley of Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Water heading 

 nearly north and making an angle of 30° with its two neighbours. 



The control of mobile distribution exercised by this compact and intricate 

 orography is best shown by the distribution of rainfall, the excess of which on the 

 western quadrant of the circle probably accounts for the crowding of the valleys in 

 that sector and the wide spacing of these in the east. On the flat rim of land outside 

 the circle, rainfall varies from 35 to 50 inches per annum, but within it all, except the 

 lower half of Bassenthwaite Water, receives more than 50 inches and within a circle 

 of six miles radius from Dunmail Raise which runs close to the heads of all the larger 

 lakes the rainfall exceeds 80 inches and rises to over 100 inches on Helvellyn and 

 neighbouring heights on the east, and in the west on a large area encircling the heads 

 of Wastwater, Ennerdale Water and Buttermere and extending to within a few 

 miles of the heads of Coniston and Windermere. The intimate sympathy between 

 the isohyets and contour lines of height, having regard to the direction of the pre- 

 vailing winds, has been proved by careful mapping on a large scale. 



The control of vegetation is almost equally clear, and the infinite varieties of height, 

 slope, aspect and chmate provide a range from richly cultivated or wooded land to 

 sub-Arctic moors and stony wastes. 



All conditions of configuration, climate, soil and vegetation united to dictate the 

 original settlement of isolated communities in the valleys which all turned their least 

 accessible ends to each other and so secured the strong local peculiarities of speech 

 and custom, traces of which still survive. 



A note on Wordsworth's Interpretation of Nature. 

 By Dr. C. H. Herfobd, F.B.A. 

 Wordsworth's attitude to scientific study was not to be concluded from some well- 

 known expressions of impatience. He decried the merely analytic use of reason, and 

 demanded the use of the higher reason which he called imagination, and which 



