PREFACE IX 



upon Stanemoor. Some way south of this point it makes 

 a great re-entering angle to the west and south, so as to 

 exclude Sedbergh and Dent from its ambit. Turning again 

 due west, it runs below Kirkby Lonsdale and Burton-in- 

 Kendal to the sea in Morecambe Bay, which it enters at a 

 point just south of Arnside Knot. Along this line no kindly 

 branch of the Gulf Stream mitigates the rigours of the east 

 wind : nay, one part of the district, Cross Fell, possesses a 

 phenomenal and diabolical east wind of its own, known 

 as the Helm Wind, which blows persistently at some sea- 

 sons of the year, and which parches the skin, chills the 

 blood, congests the liver, and plays the plague with tender 

 lungs. 



The area enclosed by the boundaries just described is 

 irregular in outline. The south-west portion is occupied by 

 mountains and fells, and forms the Lakeland of the tourist ; 

 these mountains and fells extend eastwards as far as Penrith 

 and Shap, at which last place they almost coalesce with the 

 eastern fells : northwards they reach to Caldbeck and Binsey, 

 while on the west a narrow slip of plain, widening as it goes 

 to the north, separates them from the sea. These mountains 

 and fells include such famous heights as Scawfell, Helvellyn, 

 Skiddaw, Bow Fell, the Pillar, Saddleback, Black Combe, 

 Langdale Pikes, Coniston Old Man, etc., and the lakes of 

 Ulleswater, Bassenthwaite, Derwentwater, Crummock, Wast- 

 water, Thirlmere, Ennerdale, Buttermere, Loweswater, Win- 

 dermere, Coniston, Bydal, Grasmere, and Haweswater, as 

 well as many smaller lakes and tarns. The east is occupied, 

 starting from the south by Shap Fells, Stanemoor, Alston 

 Moor, and other fells, ending in the north with Spadeadam 

 Waste, and Bewcastle Fells. The eastern and western fells 

 approach very closely at Penrith, and between them, widen- 

 ing up to the north, lies the great plain of Cumberland 

 which sweeps round westward by the alluvial flats of the 



