J. E. Warr—Drainage of the English iakes, Kad. 
heaved newer sediments, and the thickness of the latter in the 
immediate proximity to the centre of the district forbids the sup- 
position that a high mountain tract over which Carboniferous rocks 
were never deposited arose in that centre. If we prolong the 
Carboniferous rocks over the present area in accordance with their 
various dips at the margins, we shall find that the centre of the dome 
composed of these rochs would coincide with the small tract from which 
the principal valleys radiate, viz. the region of Scawfell and Gable. 
The appearance of the eight principal valleys extending from this 
point, like the spokes of a wheel, is beautifully described by Words- 
worth.! They are Windermere, Coniston, Duddon, Eskdale, Wast- 
dale, Ennerdale, the Vale of the Cocker, and Borrowdale. Further 
to the east the symmetry of the dome is destroyed by its pro- 
-longation in an easterly direction as an anticlinal (though even here 
the Carboniferous beds dip eastward on the summit of the anticlinal 
axis, showing that the district does not merely comprise the end 
of an anticline), and by the proximity of the great faults of the 
Lune Valley. Here, also, the radial character of the valleys is 
noticeable. To the north of the axis are the vales of Thirlmere, 
Ulleswater, and Haweswater, and to the south, those of Kentmere, 
Long Sleddale, Crookdale, Bannisdale, and Wastdale. This radial 
arrangement is well exhibited in the case of the valleys containing 
the larger lakes, on examining the small map. The valleys do not 
in all cases coincide with the observed or theoretical faults shown 
by Mr. Hopkins upon his map, though the general direction is the 
same. 
The radiating disposition of the vales could not have been deter- 
mined except by a somewhat regular dome-shaped upheaval of the 
country, and the trend of the Lower Paleozoic rocks shows no 
tendency towards the formation of a dome in them before the 
deposition of the Carboniferous rocks, whereas, as has been above 
noted, the dips of the Carboniferous rocks do point to the pro- 
duction of a post-Carboniferous dome, whose centre coincides with 
the point from which the valleys diverge. The drainage system is, 
in fact, strikingly similar to that represented by Mr. Gilbert in the 
case of the Ellsworth Arch,? even to the slight irregularity which 
occurs at the north end of the latter, owing to the proximity of 
Mounts Holmes and Hillers, and at the east end of the Lake District 
owing to the anticline separating the Lune and Eden Valleys, and 
the faults of the Lune Valley. 
It is hard to resist the conclusion that in the Lake District, as in 
the Henry Mountains, we have a case of superimposed drainage, the 
valleys having had their direction determined by the slopes caused 
by the upheaval of the Carboniferous and possibly of newer rocks, 
though they now run in the centre of the district entirely through 
Lower Paleozoic rocks, the newer rocks which were the cause of 
their present trends having been completely removed by denudation. 
This seems to me the strongest argument in favour of the former 
' A Complete Guide to the Lakes, third edition, page 111. 
* Geology of the Henry Mountains, p. 139, fig. 71. 
