«/". E. Marr — Physiography of Lakeland. 543 



would be difficult to account for this, and for the great difference 

 in height between the upland Mosedale and the lowland Swindale 

 Valley. 



But how could a barrier of ice move across Wet Sleddale in a 

 direction at right angles to the trend of the valley, which points 

 towards the centre of the Lake District ? Such a barrier must have 

 originated either to the south (on the Shap Fells) or to the north. 

 It can hardly have been from the south, for the highest point of 

 Shap Fells is only 1852 feet above sea-level; that is, less than 

 300 feet above the top of the required ice-barrier, and less than two 

 miles to the south of it. There are, however, further reasons for 

 believing that the ice did not come from the south but from the 

 north, and that the ice-barrier which blocked Wet Sleddale was the 

 western part of the Scotch ice, which occupied the Eden Valley, and 

 carried boulders of Criffel granite over Stainraoor, or ice from the 

 north end of the Lake District pushed south by this Scotch ice. As 

 the existence of this ice mass in the Shap area is a matter of some 

 importance, I propose to consider the evidence for it in detail. 



in the Fifth Appendix to the late Prof. Carvill Lewis' valuable 

 " Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland," Mr. Kendall refers 

 to the transport of boulders of Shap granite over Stainmoor, and 

 also to the north towards Penrith, and to the south via Hest Bank 

 and Lancaster, and observes : " This remarkable distribution appears 

 to me to point very clearly to the action of land-ice, and the 

 dispersal in these directions may be accounted for partly by the fact 

 that Shap Fell was the ice-shed (which is indicated by the striee) 

 as it is now the watershed ; and, so far as its Yorkshire distribution 

 is concerned, by the action of the land-ice from Criffel, which was 

 driven up the Solway Frith and the Vale of Eden during the period 

 of maximum glaciation by the congested state of the northern part 

 of the Irish Sea." Agreeing, as I do, with most of Mr. Kendall's 

 conclusions, he will perhaps forgive me if I differ from him on one 

 point, namely, " that Shap Fell was the ice-shed." If this were the 

 case, we should hardly find, as we do find, boulders of granite 

 extending due east along the present line of watershed (occurring 

 at a height of 1200 feet on Orton Scar). Moreover, a series of strige 

 curves round the east side of the Shap granite right across the water- 

 shed (see Goodohild, Q.J.G.S. vol. xxx. map opposite p. 98 ; also 

 see arrow to east of Shap granite, G. Fig. 1). The direction of the 

 southei-ly train of boulders from the Shap granite is described by 

 Mr. Dakyns in the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and 

 Polytechnic Society for 1878, and more fully by Mr. Strahan in the 

 Geological Survey Memoir relating to the country around Kendal, 

 Sedbergh, Bowness, and Tebay (1888 edition). From the descrip- 

 tion given in this memoir the direction of the train of boulders 

 south of the Shap granite represented by the dotted line in Fig. 1 

 is taken. 



At the foot of Haweswater, I have observed roches moutonnees 

 striated in two directions, a faint set running W.S.W.-E.N.E. (that 

 is, in the general direction of the Haweswater Valley), crossed by 



