238 Correspondence — Mr. C. E. de Ranee. 



6,000 diamonds have been collected in one district, extending about 

 seven miles along the valley of the Cudgegong river, in latitude 33° 

 south. The view of the diamond having been formed in the Tertiary 

 drift deposits coincides with the view expressed by Dr. Hartt on this 

 subject in his recent work on the Brazils. 



Dr. Hunt gave a succinct account of what is known up to the 

 present time with regard to the geological history of the diamond. 

 In India, Brazil, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon and Europe, 

 diamonds have been found associated with other gems, and with gold 

 in drift deposits. He said that the original matrix of the gem was 

 not clearly ascertained, but that he was inclined to the view that it 

 would be found to be in the oldest geological formations, possibly in 

 veins in granite. He stated that he had carefully examined many 

 samples from the Chaudiere gold regions, but failed to detect 

 diamonds in any of them. 



The meeting was a good obc, and the several papers were listened to 

 with a great deal of interest. — Montreal Daily Witness, March 1, 1871. 



coie;i2,:ESi=on^iDE!isrcE!. 



GEOLOGY OF THE CUMBEELAND LAKES. 



Sib, — I wish to enter a protest against the statement of a friend 

 of your correspondent, Mr. WoUaston, that the Cumberland hills 

 resemble "great heaps of rubbish shot out of a cart," for no district 

 in England shows more distinctly, even to the most untrained eye, 

 how valleys have been cut out of pre-existing "plains of marine 

 denudation," by the long-continued agency of running water, which 

 has cut vertically deeper and deeper, until portions of the plain, his 

 "heaps of rubbish," were separated by gorges and valleys often 

 2,000 feet in depth. 



In regard to the glaciation of the district, the question between 

 Mr. Mackintosh and some other geologists, is not whether the Lake 

 country is, or is not moutonneed, but how it became so, whether by 

 icebergs, as suggested in 1828 by Mr. Maclaren, to account for the 

 glaciation of Scotland, and held by Mr. Mackintosh to have been the 

 glacial agent in the Lake District, or by a cap of land-ice, as sug- 

 gested by Mr. CroU, universally wrapping over mountain and valley, 

 or by land-ice, in the form of small ice-sheets, and large glaciers, as 

 held by myself, not wholly filling up the valleys, but entirely 

 covering the lowland plains moving from the mountains of Cumber- 

 land towards the Solway Firth, and southwards over the Lancashire 

 and Cheshire plains, and over much of what is now sea to the 

 Mountains of Wales. On the glaciated rock surfaces in the plain, 

 rest indiscriminately lower Boulder-clay, sand and gravel, and upper 

 Boulder-clay, proving that all these deposits are of later date than 

 the period of land-ice, which clearly occurred before the submer- 

 gence, all the above deposits being of marine origin, and roughly 

 corresponding to the " Stratified Drift of Scotland," described by 

 Mr. Geikie, F.E.S. 



