114 Rev. J. Clifton Ward — Geology of the Lake District. 



spots at which the greatest depth of water occurs and those points 

 where, from the confluence of several ice-streams or from a narrow- 

 ing of the valley, the onward pressure of the ice must have been 

 greatest. 1 



"I have sometimes been asked whether the glaciation described in 

 my papers on this district was not wholly belonging to the close of 

 the Glacial Period, and whether previously the whole mountain 

 district had not been overridden by a great ice-sheet from the 

 north ? To this I answer that, so far as I am able to speak, there is 

 no evidence in the district of such a mountain- and valley-ignoring 

 sheet, and not one boulder of foreign northern rocks to be found 

 among the mountains. Therefore the burden of proof lies with those 

 who advocate this theory." 



Post-Glacial Period. 



With times subsequent to the Glacial Period we have here but 

 little to do, though a few remarks may not be out of place. 



I have often been struck with the scarcity of delicately poised 

 perched boulders, and cannot but think that this may be partly due 

 to shocks of earthquake in post-Glacial times, of sufficient severity to 

 dislodge any such. The country is so thoroughly glaciated, that 

 their absence is all the more conspicuous. But I fancy there are 

 also other indications of earth-movements. There are several cases 

 of Assuring upon mountain summits, and even of fissures crossing 

 mountain ridges, which would appear to be the work of earth-move- 

 ments moi'e general than the slips so often occurring upon mountain 

 slopes. Thus, on the summit of the Screes Mountain, and Kirk 

 Fell, Wastdale ; upon and distinctly crossing the narrow ridge of 

 High Stile, between Buttermere and Ennerdale : at Bosthwaite 

 Cam, Borrowdale, and Helm Crag, Grasmere, are instances of 

 fissures, many of them deep, long, and more or less parallel to 

 one another. In some of these cases there is no appearance of 

 slipping upon the mountain flanks, and I cannot but think that at 

 least some of them are the result of the passage of earthquake 

 waves. 



Since the close of the Glacial Period, the atmospheric denuding 

 agents have been much occupied over many areas in the work of 

 clearing away glacial debris, such as once again opening out valleys 

 partly choked by glacial drift — example, the valley between Threl- 

 keld and Keswick. In other parts the denuding agents have had 

 even harder work in roughening the ice-smoothed surface, and one 

 may confidently say that the general contour of the country as we 

 now see it can be but very little different from that which prevailed 

 immediately anterior to the Glacial period. 



" Stone implements of two kinds have been found in the mountain 

 district ; some are of the smooth and polished neolithic type similar 

 to the stone axes from Ireland, figured in Sir J. Lubbock's Pre- 

 Historic Times, at page 88 (2nd edit.) ; others are generally longer, 

 more narrow in proportion to their length, and have a roughly 

 1 See papers by the author. 



