J. Clifton Ward — Denudation of the Lake-district. 15 



4. Tho very vast period of time during which this agent must 

 have been at work in order to produce such great results. 



5. The varied conditions of climate which must have prevailed 

 during this vast peiiod of time. 



With regard to the amount of denudation, there is probably no 

 other area in England, with the exception of Wales, where any- 

 thing like it has taken place. Tho reason of this seems to bo that 

 no other area, excepting Wales, has kept its head so much above 

 water during many past geological ages. Dry land and sea-margins 

 are the domains of denudation, ocean depths those of preservation. 



If we go back to " Old Eed " times, we find reason to suppose 

 that an area of dry land then existed almost similar in size and 

 situation to the present Lake -District. Around this land, formed of 

 the elevated Silurian rocks, the Old Eed deposits were formed, and 

 upon it very probably glaciers found a home. 



During the Carboniferous Period it seems not unlikely that the 

 greater part, if not the whole of the Lake-district ^ subsided beneath 

 the sea, and was covered up by deposits of that age. 



Then followed a gradual upheaval and extensive marine denuda- 

 tion, by which most likely the old table-land was formed, traces of 

 which may still be seen in the almost uniform heights of the moun- 

 tain tops. From this time, however, up to the Glacial Period, there 

 is no evidence of a depression of this area beneath the sea, and 

 during this prodigiously long period, the atmosphere was busily at 

 work cutting out the plain of marine denudation more or less into 

 its present form. 



This agent, however, must have worked at various times under 

 very different circumstances, and with tools of very different form 

 and degrees of power. Thus during the Permian Period frost, ice, 

 and snow were most powerful ; in Oolitic times these were aban- 

 doned, and tropical rainfalls and floods very possibly employed; 

 succeeded again by ice in probably Middle Eocene, Upper Miocene 

 and Pleistocene times, with corresponding intervals of comparative 

 warmth, when the milder but not less powerful tools were made 

 use of. 



In the midst of the Glacial Period, however, after the land 

 had been well ice-covered, a somewhat considerable depression 

 probably did occur, and the district was reduced to the condition of 

 a group of icy islands. When re-elevation occurred, the glaciers still 

 lingered on for a period, but at length gave way before the present 

 milder order of things. It seems highly probable, however, that 

 this district, both during depression and elevation, was so encased in 

 ice that marine action could take no effect, and hence its comparative 

 freedom from marine deposits and traces of coast-action at various 

 levels. 



It seems to me, then, that one must either be a 'marinist' and 



believe as one's creed that such a country as the Lake-district 



perhaps the most denuded in England — received its sculptured form 



^ Possibly this old pre-Carboniferous land was a Lake-district ; the " Old Eed " 

 Glaciers may have scooped out " Old Eed " Lakes. 



