was doubtless an arm of the sea, which would then wash the bases of these granite mountains, from which our boulders have in all likelihood had their origin. This is the part of Eskdale where Dr. Buckland, judging by Fryer's map, supposed moraines to be in existence, but it is quite evident that in the present aspect of the valley none are to be found.

The panorama of mountains which form the head of Eskdale is by far the finest in the Lake district, comprising as it does the whole of the Scawfell and Bowfell range. The flanks of Bowfell on this side are grooved and planed in a very remarkable degree, and in the whole of the upper part of the valley there are evidences of glacial action at almost every turn; and seen from above, the whole valley has an iceworn, hummocky aspect. The writer did not find any moraines in the upper parts of the Esk or the Duddon valleys, and in this respect there is a marked difference between the east and west sides of Bowfell; but the glacial evidences are not less marked. To the eastward the vales of Langdale and Borrowdale lie high, and the ice would soon be checked in its flow, as we now find the evidences in the terminal moraines at the heads of the valleys. To the westward the valleys have a continuously rapid fall for five or six miles, throughout which course they have a hummocky aspect, and below this they are comparatively wide and levelled so that in all probability the glaciers which formerly existed had their termination in an arm of the sea.

This is exactly the sort of glacial condition which would best explain the requirements of a drift theory, according to which the travelled boulders found in Lancashire have been carried thither by ice; and a careful study of the Eskdale valley, after having previously ascertained the existence of moraines at its head, confirms the writer in this view. It is only needful to suppose a state of things to have existed in England analagous to that which now obtains in similar

latitudes on the ice-bound coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, where floe ice prevails for many months of the year over an area of from 200 to 300 miles wide, whilst the land is covered with glaciers during the same period. The glaciers bear the boulders down to the sea shore during the summer, and these are picked up by the floe ice, during the following winter and borne away at the breaking-up of the ice as warm weather returns, and floated seawards as the wind and waves may direct their course. To complete the picture, we have only to suppose the Lake District an isolated group of mountains, in a frozen sea, and much of Lancashire and the Midland Counties submerged, and under similar conditions to those now prevailing in Labrador and Newfoundland; and there is every reason to believe that such were the conditions which obtained during the period in which our Boulder Drift was deposited.

The Duddon Valley, in its upper portion, which centres in Bowfell, is in its glacial aspect similar in every way to Eskdale, from which, in fact, it is only separated at its origin by a low water-parting, so that any glacier from Bowfell would flow over into each of those valleys in common. Below Seathwaite Tarn it would, however, receive a very important affluent from the Coniston range, "Coniston Old Man" being immediately above Seathwaite Tarn. At this point of the valley of the Duddon we therefore find, as might be expected, very fine examples of glacial action, and especially in the mammilated and scored rocks and perched blocks, several of which form the subjects of the interesting set of drawings exhibited, for which I am indebted to my friend W. Hull. I have not visited the Duddon recently, but was aware of the existence of these examples of glacial action, and requested my friend to send me a few sketches of them. He does not profess to be a geologist, but his remarks upon the Duddon Valley are of interest. He writes, in reply to my

note, "that no one could pass through the Duddon Valley without being struck with the worn and disturbed appearance of its rocks and crags, and the immense amount of debris scattered over the hill sides. About Seathwaite the perched blocks are very conspicuous in all directions—some of them can be called huge in size, but when they come against the sky their position gives them a look which arrests attention and makes them appear larger than they really are. They frequently occur in groups, and seem to lie in one main current-along which the glacier had moved and deposited these blocks as they were arrested by the masses of smoothly worn elevated crags on which they now rest."

Mr. Hull's description will at once explain to a geologist that the groups of perched rocks he describes are probably lateral moraines, and his most interesting sketches are convincing proofs of this-and shew that the glaciers about Seathwaite in the Duddon Valley have been of great size and depth, filling a wide valley to a considerable height up the hill sides. The estuary of the Duddon opens out below Broughton-in-Furness into a wide bay, and supposing, as in the Eskdale valley, that it formerly reached much further inland, and was subject to the action of floe-ice, it would thus receive the moraine debris, and float it away as before described. The granite district of Harter Fells would furnish its contribution of granite boulders, to be mixed with the porphyries and greenstones of Bowfell and the slates of Coniston in the terminal moraines.

Dr. Buckland held the opinion that the granite boulders of the Shap district had been carried southwards by the agency of glaciers, but there are not the same evidences now to be found about the Shap Fells as those which exist in Eskdale. The granite district at Shap is of a very limited area, comprising only some 800 to 1,000 acres around Wastdale Pike, about two miles above the Wells House, near

Shap. Wastdale Pike is not an isolated peak, and would not be recognised as granitic from its contour. It is an outlier of the mountain range at the head of Troutbeck and Haweswater, of which Tarn Crag forms the central summit.

The Shap granite is of a very marked character, having a rich red colour with very large crystals of feldspar. A railway has been recently made up to the quarries, and an extensive plant put down for polishing the granite. It is to be used in our new Town Hall, and cannot fail to come into popular use on account of its great beauty. It can be obtained in very large masses.

The moraines described by Dr. Buckland at Shap are not of a marked character, as the writer failed to find anything to be considered a true moraine. The valley below the granite, and thence over the whole of Shap Fells, has a most remarkable appearance from the large numbers of of immense rounded masses of granite which are everywhere scattered, all the way to Tebay, where Wastdale Beck joins the Lune. These widely dispersed boulders cannot, the writer thinks, be accounted for by the agency of glaciers; besides which the summit of Wastdale Pike is but 1,853 feet above the level of the sea, and the valley below it some 500 feet lower, whilst the junction with the Lune at Tebay is 700 feet above the sea, so that it is almost an impossibility for any glacier to have transported its moraines to any point from which they could be carried and dispersed by drift ice.

Another explanation must be sought, and it will probably be found in the very fact of the occurrence of this solitary granite peak where it is now found. The whole district of Shap abounds in extensive veins of Whinstone and other plutonic rocks, crowned by the huge granitic mass of Wastdale Pike, which has evidently been forced upwards by some volcanic movement through the slates. The changes which would result from this immense movement,