lxxviii PKOCEEDLXOS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I906 



More than once have the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of portions of 

 the district been covered by red sandstones, and waters impregnated 

 with iron-peroxide have filtered into the older rocks beneath. 

 Where these rocks are comparatively unbroken haematite-staining 

 usually occurs as a mere film on joint -planes ; but where extensive 

 fracture has taken place along ' lags ' or ' tears,' the rocks of the 

 fractured belts are generally more or less stained throughout with 

 haematite. Accordingly, when extensive haematite-staining is 

 observed, a fault of the lag or tear- type may be suspected. The 

 lowly-inclined lag-fault material does not, as a general rule, 

 produce any marked feature, whereas the vertical or highly-inclined 

 shatter-belts of the tear-faults are readily affected by denuding 

 agents, and are very frequently (as will be ultimately seen) occupied 

 by gorges or portions of large valleys. On examining the tract 

 occupied by these gorges, the rocks between one gorge and another 

 are frequently found to be fresh and unstained ; while the raddled 

 rock of the gorges is seen to be shattered by innumerable fissures,, 

 large and small. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than on the 

 small plateau of the Scawfell region which lies north of Great 

 End, known as Seathwaite Fell, on which are situate Sprinkling 

 Tarn and a number of minor pools. The more or less flinty banded 

 ashes of this Pell, dipping at a low angle, run in unbroken scarps of 

 hard rock for some distance, when they suddenly change on the 

 appearance of one of the shatter-belts. Two marked sets of these 

 belts here run approximately at right angles. One, to be noticed 

 more fully later, is marked by the upper part of Ruddy Gill draining 

 into Grainsgill, and farther west by the stream which flows into 

 Sty-Head Tarn. This belt has a general west-north-westerly and 

 east-south-easterly direction. 



Along a belt belonging to the other set, which runs from south- 

 south-west to north-north-east, is a lower portion of the Ruddy-Gill 

 stream. Nothing can be more marked than the contrast between 

 the bare grey crags of the plateau and the shattered rocks of this 

 portion of Ruddy Gill, glowing purple-red, and setting off to 

 advantage the rich greens of the ferns, bilberry, Alpine ladies* 

 mantle, rose-root, and kidney-leaved sorrel, which flourish in the 

 rich soil of this easily- disintegrated belt. 



Let us pass on now to a consideration of the distribution of these 

 belts. Minor belts seem to be generally distributed throughout the 

 Lower Palaeozoic rocks of the district, but there are three very 



