LAKE COUNTRY ROCKS. 
THOMAS TATE, F.G.S., 
Leeds; Hon. Sec. to the Boulder Committee of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. 
To those who are anticipating in the near future a vacation tour in 
the English Lake District, a brief description of its geological build 
may be acceptable. To the north of the highway from Penrith, 
through Keswick to Cockermouth, lie the soft black Skiddaw slates, 
some of the oldest fossiliferous rocks in England. The outcrop of 
the Coniston limestone unites the head of Windermere with the head 
of Coniston Lake, south of this line consisting mainly of younger 
rocks of that series. Between these parallel landmarks the Ordo- 
vician Volcanic series intervenes. ‘The pedestrian, taking the road 
from Ambleside to Keswick, Borrowdale, Seatoller, Honister Pass 
Crummack Water, and over Black-sail to Egremont, or by Seathwaite 
over Scafell and southward nearly to Black Coombe, has this series 
all the way; indeed, most of the rugged mountainous scenery of the 
Lake Country has been carved out of these volcanic rocks. 
These three primary groups are completely enclosed in a low-lying 
belt of Carboniferous and Permian rocks, and towards them certain 
igneous bosses behave intrusively. Three are granites: Shap, 
Skiddaw, and Eskdale; three are granophyres: Carrock Fell, 
Buttermere, and Ennerdale; and three are volcanic centres: Castle 
Head, Carrock Fell, and one near Elterwater. 
To glacialists especially the Lake Country is interesting as being 
in Pleistocene times a feeding-ground whence were radially distributed 
numerous rocks possessing a marked individuality, by which they 
may be promptly recognised. That there is method in this 
distribution, by which the track of each tongue of ice may be 
mapped and defined, no longer admits of doubt. 
Take three examples: A visit to any brickfield in Wigan, 
St. Helens, Bolton, or Manchester will suffice to show that the 
Lake District boulders so profusely scattered over Lancashire and 
Cheshire are chiefly from the west and south—Ennerdale, Borrow- 
dale, and Coniston. On the other hand, the boulders brought to 
light in connection with the Tees Salt Industry, from boreholes roo 
to 120 feet in depth, we find belong chiefly (omitting local rocks) to 
‘brockram’ from Appleby ; next come Shap granite, Armboth Dyke, 
and lastly Carrock Fell syenite, all of these being from the north or 
east. If with these two groups we compare the Lake District 
boulders met with in the lower reaches of the Calder, we are struck 
August 1892, 
