lxXXViii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1906, 



ments which produced so marked an effect upon Britain culminated, 

 as generally recognized, in Miocene times. This I believe to have 

 been the date of the uplift which formed the Lake-District dome, and 

 I propose to put forward reasons other than those above advanced 

 in favour of this. 



Let us for the moment consider the geology of England as a 

 whole. As I have elsewhere remarked, 



' the shape of England is roughly an isosceles triangle with a base extending 

 from Northumberland to Cornwall and the apex on the coast of Kent. The 

 position of the base is due to the uplift of Paiseozoic rocks, to the west and 

 north of England, whilst the position of the two sides is owing to the strike of 

 the Mesozoic and later rocks, with a general northerly trend to the north and a 

 westerly trend to the south,' r 



the portion of the island next the apex being, in fact, composed of 

 Mesozoic rocks, with a mean strike parallel to the direction of the 

 base. 



' Examination of the geology of England in fact indicates that had the Miocene 

 tilt been in an opposite direction, giving the newer strata a [north] westerly 

 dip instead of a [south] easterly one, the Highlands of Britain would be on the 

 [south] east side, the Mesozoic rocks would be denuded there, and the London 

 ridge and similar ridges now buried beneath newer deposits would form a hilly 

 country occupied by the more ancient formations, whilst the [North and] West 

 of England, and possibly Scotland and Ireland, would consist of low ground 

 formed of a peneplain of old rocks, or more probably of Triassic beds and even 

 later deposits, possibly as modern as the Cretaceous and Eocene beds.' (Op. cit. 

 p. 280.) 



Prof. Judd, after describing the present distribution of the newer 

 rocks of Western Scotland, remarks : 



1 In the face of these facts, I believe that is impossible to avoid the conclusion 

 that the whole of the north and north-western portions of the British Archi- 

 pelago — now sculptured by denudation into a rugged mountain-land — were, 

 like the south and south-eastern parts of the same islands, to a great extent, if 

 not completely, covered by sedimentary deposits, ranging in age from the 

 Carboniferous to the Cretaceous inclusive ; and that, as a consequence, we 

 must refer the production of the striking and very characteristic features of 

 those Highland districts to the last great epoch of the earth's history — the 

 Tertiary — and very largely indeed to the latest portion of that epoch, namely 

 the Pliocene.' 2 



I pass now to another line of argument. Let us compare the 



1 'The Development of British Scenery' Science Progress, vol. vii (1898) 

 p. 285. 



2 'The Secondary Eocks of Scotland.— Ill : The Strata of the Western 

 Coast & Islands ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxiv (1878) p. 669. 



