April, 1891. glacial action among British mountains. 
77 
PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS OF GLACIAL ACTION 
AMONG BRITISH MOUNTAINS.* 
BY HORACE PEARCE, F.G.S., F.L.S. (RECENTLY PRESIDENT OF THE 
DUDLEY AND MIDLAND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY). 
Iii bringing before the members of the Birmingham 
Natural History Society a few evidences of glacial action, 
observed during brief holidays chiefly in Wales and among 
the mountains of our beautiful English Lake District, I do so 
with the object of pointing out some special instances of 
marked character which arrested my attention, in several 
cases quite unexpectedly, and in remote glens or wild ravines 
not so often visited by the general public. And I wish more 
particularly to dwell upon evidence of distinct ice action 
rather than now to enter upon the vexed question of causes, 
or to endeavour to distinguish between any assumed general 
ice-cap extending far down this northern hemisphere, and the 
local glaciation more confined to the mountain districts. I 
should like to convey something of the strong and repeated 
indications of the local action of small glaciers on most of our 
highest mountains; a condition which, though geologically 
quite recent, is yet very remote from the present day if 
measured by number of years, could this be done ; for we are 
met here, as elsewhere in geology, by the demand of unlimited 
time. 
And here I would remark that these distinct and striking 
phenomena are the more remarkable, considering how com¬ 
paratively slight is the altitude of the highest mountains in 
the British Isles. At the same time, we must bear in mind 
that they are in most cases, perhaps in all, greatly reduced 
from their original height ; as we feel when standing on the 
apex of Snowdon, supported now by ridges that enclose great 
and profound hollows, or cwms, in the old Welsh language, 
and realise how, noble as it is, this is but a fragment of the 
original mountain, though yet so wild, serrated, and grand. 
But to proceed directly to a few traces of the paths of the 
old glaciers. A few years ago, when spending a short holiday 
at Mardale, that little lonely pastoral glen above the head of 
beautiful Hawes Water, in Westmoreland, I spent some time 
round the shores of Blea Water, one of the wildest tarns I 
ever saw, of notable features in crag and precipice, sur¬ 
rounded closely on three sides by the rugged rocks of High 
* Read before the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical 
Society, April loth, 1890. 
