Ixviil PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I906, 



on the south-east side of the district forming Morecambe Bay and 

 the lower part of the Lune Yalley around Lancaster. The history 

 of these depressed tracts is closely bound up with that of Lakeland 

 itself. 



Before entering into particulars with regard to the origin of the 

 central dome and the outlying tracts, it will be well to pay some 

 regard to the writings which bear upon the physical history of the 

 district. 



In the ' Lonsdale Magazine ' for the year 1820 l appeared a 

 noteworthy communication entitled ' Remarks on the Succession of 

 Rocks in the District of the Lakes/ by Jonathan Otley. This 

 article was, by degrees, expanded in the various editions of Otley's 

 well-known ' Guide to the Lakes.' I specially call attention to it, 

 for, although Sedgwick fully acknowledged Otley's work as the 

 pioneer of Lake-District geology (thus, in a letter dated September 

 10th, 1854, and published on p. 249 of the ' Life & Letters of the 

 Bev. Adam Sedgwick,' 2 he writes, ' He was the leader in all we 

 know of the country '), it seems to me that the claims of the 

 humble guide have been largely overlooked, owing to the brilliant 

 powers of the late Woodwardian Professor. It gives me much 

 pleasure to bear testimony from this Chair to the great value of 

 the geological work of a very remarkable man. In the paper to 

 which reference is made, Otley separates the three great groups of 

 the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of Lakeland, now known as the Skiddaw 

 Slates, the Borrowdale Series, and the Upper Slates (from the base 

 of the Coniston Limestone to the top of the Kirkby-Moor Plags). 

 The last will, for convenience, be spoken of simply as the Upper 

 Slates, in the succeeding portions of this Address. ' A bed of lime- 

 stone,' says Otley, ' forms an irregular circle round this mountainous 

 or slaty district, intervening between that and what are called the 

 coal measures,' and he then traces the distribution of this lime- 

 stone. Otley, therefore, recognized the circular mass of older rock 

 surrounded by the ring of newer strata. 



The next important paper connected with our subject appeared in 

 the Quarterly Journal of this Society in 1848. 3 It is by W. Hopkins, 

 and is entitled ' On the Elevation & Denudation of the District of 

 the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland.' In this paper the 

 connexion between the geological structure and the radial drainage 



1 Vol. i, p. 433. 



2 J. W. Clark & T. McK. Hughes, vol. i (1890) 8vo. Cambridge. 



3 Vol. iv, p. 70. 



