GRACE : THE GLACIAL GEOLOGY OF FURNESS. 
409 
Here the details have been obliterated by road making, but the 
simplest explanation of the gorge seems to be that it has been cut by 
water during the later Glacial and Post-Glacial times since the deepening 
of the Coniston Basin. A similar, but smaller, gorge is to be seen at 
the mouth of the Ked Dell, where the beck is now engaged in cutting 
the lip of the gorge back into the higher valley. 
Low Yewdale is an excellent instance of a U-shaped valley with 
very steep sides and a flat floor. Two valleys open into its head, viz., 
Guards Beck and Upper Yewdale. When viewed from its northern 
end the Guards Beck is seen to occupy a narrow valley cut in the floor 
of a much wider one, which shews every sign of severe glaciation. 
Immediately before its entry into Low Yewdale the mouth of the lower 
valley is narrowed by an area of rough ground considerably higher 
than the valley floor. To the north of this is a triangular shaped 
flat with every appearance of having once been the site of a lake, of 
which the rounded gravel which occurs at its upper end may be part 
of the old beach. The whole appearance suggests that the valley 
was glaciated to the level of the rough ground, and afterwards cut 
down by water to its present level, when the streams were adjusting 
their levels to the deepened Coniston Basin. Upper Yewdale is at 
right angles to Low Yewdale, and is a wide U-shaped valley with afloor 
falling rapidly into the deeply excavated Low Yewdale. That the 
glacier which came down it was of considerable size is indicated by the 
striking width of Low Yewdale opposite its mouth. 
The outlets from the Coniston Basin are three, viz., (1) The Wood- 
land-Torver valley ; (2) a small dry valley over Beacon Tarn ; and 
(3) the Crake Valley. 
A considerable glacier passed through the Torver-Woodland 
valley into the Steers Pool Basin, leaving large accumulations of 
drift. At Town End, where the Steers Pool crosses the road, a conical 
hill cut by the railway is made entirely of drift Further north is a 
larger one also of drift, and along the base of the hill on the western 
side are other morainic mounds. In the valley bottom near Haverigg 
Holme are a number of curious dry channels cut in solid rock, which 
have no relation to the present drainage of the valley, and are 
probably the result of the erosive action of the copious streams which 
flowed down this valley when the glaciers were melting. 
A smaller channel at about the 500 feet contour near Beacon 
(See Map of Overflows from Coniston, near Beacon, Plate L.) 
