352 D. MacJcintosh-^JDispersion of Shapfell Boulders. 



Mphill on grounding. It could not have been caused by the valley- 

 ignoring agency which glaciated a great part of the Lake District 

 from N. to S., while the physical geography of the district forbids 

 the idea of a local glacier, from the W.S.W. or W.S., acting at a 

 sufficient height to smooth and score the southern face of Wasdale 

 Crag up to the summit, for on the summit the rocks are moutonned. 

 A valley-glacier, moreover, could not hav« carried granite boulders 

 from Wasdale Crag transversely over the adjacent valley, and left 

 them m. great numbers on the opposite or southern side. Much 

 less could a valley-glacier, or any movement of land-ice, have dis- 

 persed the boulders in the many different directions in which they 

 are found. It is true the glaciation of the rock-surfaces and the 

 distribution of the boulders may have been separate events, but the 

 preponderance of evidence here seems to be in favour of the idea 

 that all the superficial phenomena partially originated while the land 

 was submerged. 



Mode in which the Boulders were launched. — There would appear to 

 be little difficulty in conceiving how the boulders in the neighbour- 

 hood, at comparatively low levels, on the K., E., and S.E., may have 

 been floated by coast-ice ; for though the cliffs and rocky projections 

 of Wasdale Hill are too sloping and the granite too hard to furnish 

 many blocks and fragments by the force of gravitation combined 

 with the dilapidating action of frost, all must admit that the sea is 

 pre-eminently a block-detaching agent.^ The process of natural 

 quarrying carried on by the waves at successive levels, as the land 

 subsided or rose, would have supplied an immense number of blocks, 

 and, at the same time, rounded those of them which present indica- 

 tions of having been subjected to attrition. The small number of 

 boulders remaining on the surface of the hill, or not imbedded in 

 the pinel or overlying loam, would seem to show that the trans- 

 portation must nearly have kept pace with the process of natural 

 quarrying and rounding. The breaking-up of coast-ice, and ground- 

 ice converted into coast-ice, would appear sufficient to explain the 

 launching of the boulders from what must have been a steeply- 

 sloping sea-beach, progressively advancing down and up the sides 

 of the hill as the land sunk or rose. But it is probable there were 

 pauses in the oscillation of the land. Some of these may be repre- 

 sented by the great terrace of boulder-pinel and red loam at the base 

 of the hill in the direction of Shap Wells, and by the terraces at 

 higher levels on the N.N.E. side of the hill. The myriads of 

 boulders transported over the 1,400-feet level of Stainmore Pass 

 would seem to indicate another pause when (taking into account the 

 depth of water required to float ice) very little, if any, of Wasdale 

 Hill appeared above the sea, that is, supposing Stainmore Pass and 

 Wasdale Hill to have been afterwards equally upheaved. 



Derivation of the Great Eastern Dispersion. — How could a few feet 

 of land, a few hundred yards in diameter, above low-water level, 

 have supplied all the Wasdale Hill granite to be found to the east of 



^ See Mr. E. Hull's able article " On the Eaised Beach of Cantyre," on block- 

 detaching agency of the sea.— Geoi. Mag., 1866, Vol. III. p. 7. 



