490 C. E. De Ranee — Surface Geology of the Lahe-distrlct 



of strike, extending across the country in a belt about fourteen 

 miles in width, resting on the Skiddaw Slates, and passing under 

 the various divisions of the Coniston series. The characteristic 

 feature of this tract of country is the uniformity in direction of all 

 the gorges, or depressions, in which the lakes occur. The initiative 

 of their direction (as pointed out by Dr. Nicholson)' appears to have 

 been given by a system of north and south faults : thus Windermere, 

 Eydal Water, Grasmere, and Thirlmere may be said to lie in one line 

 of depression. Between the two last-mentioned lakes the pass of 

 Dunmail Raise forms a col between two valleys. In the bottom of 

 the valley, between the pass and Grasmere, there are immense 

 mounds of moraine matter, the pebbles are all angular and strictly 

 local. Steel Fell and Seat Sandal form two cliffs on either side, 

 that on the western being much the steeper ; the summit of Helm 

 Crag, being much weathered, forming the well-known " couchant 

 lion with a lamb under its nose," of the guide books. Following 

 up the ice marks of Easdale Valley into that of Raise Beck, there 

 seems little doubt that the two glaciers occupying these valleys 

 united between Silver How and Nab Scar, and thence bore down 

 upon Loughrigg Fell, which stopped its forward progress in a 

 direct line, deflecting it into what is now Rydal Water. The lake 

 Grasmere is excavated in a rock-basin, and one can easily understand 

 its excavation being due to the immense pressure of the ice infring- 

 ing on Loughrigg Fell. A similar state of things took place at the 

 foot of Rydal Water ; the rocks here are moutonneed and glaciated 

 upwards. 



Moutonneed rocks occur wherever the gorges are narrow and 

 contracted, or wherever a mass of rock, opposite the entrance to a 

 valley, formed a bar to the further progress of a glacier. The 

 glaciated rocks above Skelwith Force being an example of the first ; 

 those at the entrance to Grisdale, above Patterdale Hall, of the second. 



The feature which strikes the eye of a geologist, on viewing the 

 country from the top of Helvellyn, is not the " sea of mountains" of 

 the guide books, but the flatness of the tops of the hills ; the valleys 

 and gorges appearing mere gashes in the upland plain. This plain 

 (which may possibly be part of that old plain of marine denudation which 

 has been described by Professor Ramsay, in his " Geology of North 

 Wales"), varies but little in elevation; the watershed of the lake 

 country, as pointed out by Mr. Bolton, being a complete circle. 

 Within this circle all the streams flow north, and fall into the rivers 

 Derwent and Cocker, which unite at Cockermouth, and thus drain 

 nearly the whole of the Lake-district. . Some of the most remarkable 

 passes of the district are situated on the southern edge of this circle, 

 as Kirkstone Pass and the Pass of Dunmail Raise. It would thus 

 appear, before rain began to fall, and rivers to flow, over this tract, in 

 pre-glacial times, that there was a circular tract of high flat land in 

 the centre of the district, surrounded by sloping ground dipping out- 

 wards in every direction. This circular plain (the top of a truncated 

 cone) being no doubt the result of a pause in the subsidence during 

 ^ Geology of Cumberland, p. 18. 



