280 



MINEEALOGY. 



found, but rarely in sufficient quantity to make the operation 

 profitable ; many of these works after being abandoned for years 

 having been recommenced by different parties, but generally with 

 the same results ; several adventurers in search of lead, however, 

 in the neighbourhood of Keswick, Caldbeck, &c., have been mod- 

 erately successful. To indicate the localities of unsuccessful 

 results would be giving a list of almost all the dales and townships 

 of the district. 



Slate. — A very important source of employment and enter- 

 prize in the Lake District exists in the slate-quarries, the most 

 extensive of which now in operation are in an important displace- 

 ment of the Brathay flag-rock at Kirkby Ireleth. The Slate 

 obtained in this formation is of a dark colour, whilst that 

 quarried from the middle slate-rock at Coniston, Langdale, Rydal, 

 and other places is of a pale green hue ; the most beautiful of all, 

 and which always commands the readiest market, being got from 

 a quarry at Hodge Close in Tilberthwaite. The tourist passing 

 through the Langdales and Tilberthwaite to Coniston will be 

 struck by the enormous heaps of dehris indicating the positions of 

 abandoned slate-works, and the caverns and galleries in some of 

 these will ample repay the trouble for inspection. On the eastern 

 and southern sides of Coniston Old Man too, are numerous waste 

 heaps, shewing where Slate of fine quality was obtained formerly. 

 Operations have been renewed in some of these works, but only 

 upon the most limited scale. It is said that these quarries were 

 abandoned in consequence of their distance from the sea and the 

 cost of land-carriage prohibiting competion with the Ku-kby 

 works J the completion of the railway, now in progress, to 

 Coniston may possibly, by obviating this disadvantage, give a 

 new stimulus to the working of the inland slate-beds. At an 

 abandoned quarry on Walna Scar, slate and flags were obtained 

 beautifully striated with broad ribbon-like marks, crossing the 

 cleavage-line and showing how the slate-rock was originally 

 formed by successive layers of aqueous deposit. These may be 

 examined by the tourist descending into the vale of Duddon from 

 Coniston, in the heap of slate debris lying a little to the left of 



