492 Mr. J. Bryce on Striated and Polished Rocks, 



istence of those great faults, which are known to traverse most 

 of the valleys radiating from the central group ; for example, 

 in Long Sleddale, Kentmere, the upper part of Windermere, 

 Coniston, the Duddon, Eskdale, Wastwater, Ennerdale, Mar- 

 dale, &c. The materials thus loosened would be transported 

 from their parent beds, further and further at each successive 

 elevation of the land, and so might reach great distances, as 

 the hills of Derbyshire and the eastern wolds of Yorkshire. 

 During this period the striation and furrowing may have been 

 produced upon the surfaces exposed, below the sea-level, to 

 the wearing action of the drift; and it is worthy of note, that 

 the phenomena now detailed respecting these confirm, so far 

 as they go, the theory we have been stating. The grooves 

 and striae have a diverging direction, those at Jacob Wood 

 having a more easterly bearing than those at Birthwaite; 

 while the valley of the Kent presents to us a succession of 

 ridges of sand and gravel of coincident direction with the 

 former, and containing fragments of rocks which must have 

 come from the north. The hill immediately adjoining Ken- 

 dal, on which Kendal Castle stands, another hill south of 

 it, of the same form and dimensions, and many others in this 

 vale, might be cited as examples. It would be highly inter- 

 esting to ascertain, by an examination of the kind before 

 alluded to, whether this partial conformity is an isolated phe- 

 nomenon, or is part of a great system of diverging striae, 

 marking the quaquaversal direction of the denuding and trans- 

 porting forces. 



The phaenomena which we have described are such as 

 glaciers could have produced, and are actually giving rise 

 to in many places; and it is not denied that glaciers may have 

 once existed in the high central valleys. But their agency, 

 or that of icebergs, is quite insufficient, as has been shown by 

 Mr. Hopkins, " to account for the most important phaeno- 

 mena of distant transport from the Cumbrian mountains;" 

 such, for example, as the dispersion of the Shap boulders ; 

 and as two causes for the same effect are inadmissible, it seems 

 unnecessary to have recourse to the agency of ice at all, since 

 the diluvial theory, as above stated, is adequate to explain all 

 the appearances — the deposition of the superficial detritus, 

 and the distant transport of boulders, as well as the scooping 

 out of the valleys, and the striation and grooving, the rounding 

 and polishing of exposed rocky surfaces. 



High School of Glasgow, 

 October 22, 1850. 



