78 
GLACIAL ACTION AMONG BRITISH MOUNTAINS. APRIL, 1891. 
Street Mountain. In some positions, and under some lights, 
its waters are black, and seem very deep ; an impression still 
further conveyed by the steepness of rocks plunging in on 
two sides. But across its outlet is a barrier that looks 
almost artificial, nearly as much so as a railway embankment, 
and is a great contrast to most of the bare rock surfaces 
around. The waters are evidently chiefly confined by it, and 
although we cannot say at what depth in it we might come to 
the solid rock, it is mainly composed of smaller portions of 
rocky material, and I have no doubt is a large moraine left by 
the ice in its later stages. The whole of this recess under 
High Street and Harter Fell has a singularly worn look—a 
sort of carved-out appearance—and forms a remarkably bold 
bit of scenery. On its northern'side runs a ridge, about east 
and west, for nearly a mile-and-three-quarters, uncommonly 
rough and narrow in places, called truly enough Rough 
Crag, as I found one morning when I scrambled along it part 
way, and found it to sink profoundly and at a steep angle 
into this hollow enclosing Blea Water, and on the opposite 
side into the scarcely less wild and secluded Gflen of Riggin- 
dale. I mention this, because when you traverse the sky¬ 
line of High Street you see how some agency in the past, 
which I feel sure was ice principally, has very nearly cut 
right through the mountain. But down below, where the 
end of this Rough Crag curves slightly, and where, on 
this supposition, there would be a great pressure from the 
curving glacier, you come upon a long, even, sloping surface 
of rock, as though planed off in a most remarkably smooth 
and even manner, which, to my mind, corresponds closely 
with what one can see would be the result under such con¬ 
ditions. This smooth, planed surface of its lower slope, 
where the vallev trends towards Hawes Water, forms a 
telling contrast to the broken, irregular rocks along the ridge, 
and to the wild heights about lonely Blea Water. 
In walking across one afternoon from Mardale to Patter- 
dale, after passing over Kidsty Pike and High Street, before 
proceeding into the lower valleys, I turned aside to notice a 
small lake resting under long green hillsides—remote pastoral 
Hayes Water. At an elevation of 1,888ft. above the sea, and 
with only shepherds’ paths near it, the half-mile length of 
pure water has a very clean untouched appearance. But 
what drew mv attention most was a number of little mounds, 
almost bee-hive shaped, near the upper end of the lake, 
having almost an artificial appearance, distinct one from 
another, and quite unlike the ordinary slopes of detritus below 
the rocks. Evidently, to my mind, they are glacial moraines, 
