70 
PROCEEDINGS, 
ETC e 
POSTPONED PAPERS. 
On the Elevation and Denudation of the District of the Lakes of 
CUMBERLAND and WESTMORELAND. By W. Hopkins, Esq., 
M.A. and F.R.S. 1 
[Read June 6th, 1842.] 
[An abstract of this paper was given in the Proceedings of the Geological 
Society, vol. iii. p. 757.] 
Part I. 
§ Structure of the District. 
THE general structure of the district of the lakes of Cumberland and 
Westmoreland is well known to geologists, more particularly by the 
labours of Professor Sedgwick. My own task, in the general exami- 
nation which I have recently made of the district, has been one of 
inspection and not of discovery; and the object of the present com- 
munication is not the description of phenomena, but the theoretical 
discussion of the causes to which they are to be referred. I shall enter 
into descriptive details only so far as may be necessary for this pur- 
pose. In the first part of the memoir I shall consider the structure 
and elevation of the district, and in the second part the phzenomena 
of its denudation. 
1. Boundary of the District.—In descriptive geology we may 
apply the term district to a portion of country comprised within any 
arbitrary boundary to which our researches may have extended ; but 
in considering the theory of its elevation, a district must include the 
whole of that space throughout which we recognize a character of con- 
tinuity in the external configuration and the observed phenomena. 
Thus in the case before us, we must not limit ourselves to the group 
of mountains immediately associated with the lakes, but must extend 
the district eastward to the great Penine fault, which will thus form 
its eastern boundary. On the north, from Kirkby Stephen by Hesket 
round to Egremont and thence to Morcambe Bay, its boundary will 
be sufficiently marked by that of the New Red Sandstone, except for 
some distance north of Whitehaven, where it is marked by the coal- 
field. From Morecambe Bay it turns eastward, and is sufficiently 
marked by the discontinuous portions of mountain limestone, by which 
it is carried on to meet the Craven fault south of Kirkby Lonsdale. 
