WESTM:ORLAND. [KELLY's by :Mr

12' WESTM:ORLAND. [KELLY'S by :Mr. E. E. Walker, whose untimely death in East Africa tough sandstone, or grit with interstratified slates or flags " before he had completed this investigation is greatly to be These beds are from 6,000 to 7,000 feet in thickness between regretted. (See Q. Jow"n. Geological Society, vo1. Ix., Wiudermere (north end) and Troutbeck; from this point p. 7°·) they form a very regular band about 2 miles in width east Many quarries have been opened in the slates of the wards by Applethwaite Common, Hugill Fell, Skc!lgles Volcanic Series, but few are now worked. Several mineral Water, Long Crag, and Lord's Seat, to Birkbeck Fells, veins or lodps, too, traverse the rocks; the lead-mine of south of Shap, the strata dipping steadily south-east at from 60 to 80 degrees. Greenside in Patterda:e on the east side of Helvellvn• is one of the most valuable in the North of England; in 1877 it After passing southwards under newer rocks these yielded 1,600 tons of ore, from which I, 133 tons of lead and Coniston Grit beds rise up to the surface again and form a 15,726 ozs. of slh"er were extracted: total value, i,20,8Il; large tract round Whinfell Beacon and Grayrigg Forest, hut in JgO-l these amounts had decreased to 1,357 tons of extending eastwards hetween Bridge Inn and Howgill Station lead ore, of the value of £ 12,942. to the Langdale Fells and Cantley Crags. The Coniston In Wales we tind in the Ordovician or Lower Silurian Grits are also brought up on the east side of the Lane rocks evidences 01 volcanic activity on a great scale in thc Valley, forming Holme Fell, MIddleton Fell, and Barbon Al"enig Beds (Lower Ordovician), and in the Hala Beds }<'cll. Fossils are not very common or we]] preserved in this {Upper Ordovician) while even the Llandeilo Flags (Middle great series of hardened sandy mud-beds; Cardiola inter Ordovician) contain some old lavas and ashes. During the rupta is a well-known bivalve shell, orthoceratites and grap time th'1t the Arenig volcanoes of North Wales were most tolites are not unfrequent. activf, the Upper Skiddaw Slates of the Lake lJistriet were In this division the Brathay Flags may be correlated with being tranquilly deposited as black mud upon the old sea the Wenlock Shales of Shropshire, while the succeeding floor; but when, in "Tales, the Arenig Period ended and the strata may be c1as"ed as of Lower Ludlow Age. Llandeilo Age began, the condition of things was largely reversed; during Llandeilo times it was the region we now 4. Bannisdale Slates.-Thesc are correlated with the call the "Lake District" which was the great centre of Lower Ludlow Shales of Shropshire. They may be described volcanic activity, while the Welsh cones practically ceased as coarse, sandy slates, " often much cleaved and jointed, to erupt. The time during which the Lake District was a never making good slates, but often large rough slabs, centre of this volcanic action must have been a very long quarried for paving or building stones." The only tolerable one, for the Volcanic Series of Borrowdale can scarcely be slates were formerly worked in the higher part of the valley less than 12,000 feet in thickness. Thus the Borrowdale called 13annisdale, at the very base of the series. Beds represent the Llandeilo Flags of Wales, and in addition The Bannisdale Slates occupy a very wide stretch of probahly the lower part of the Hala Series of Walr.s also. country from Windermere Station, Bowness, and Winster (3.) Coniston Limestone Series.-At last the volcanic on the we;!t, to TJnderbarruw, Staveley, Sleddale Forest, agencies which formed the Borrowdale Bells became ex Potter Fell, Bretherdale, and Tebay Station on the past, hausted, and a depression of the land ensued, until at last undulating rapidly, with a very irregular surfacl', due to the surface sank far below the sea-level, and above the the frequent alternation of hard and soft beds of rock; Volcanic Series thin beds of limestone and shale were " between Kendal and Windermere, the 13annisdale Slates ,formed. The Coniston Limestone is a hard, compact, may be said to be crumpled or puckered, so numerous are .greyish-blue, grey, or nearly black rock; it will not burn the rolls." The total tllickness of this division is about S,DOO into lime, and is of little use for building, for it rapIdly feet; fos~ils are rare, but include the characteristic grap df'£omposes when exposed to the air, when the numerous tolite, lIfonograptus l eintwardinensis. fossils which it contains stand out in relief. although the unweathered rock shows hardly a trace of organic remains; 5- Hay Fell and Kirkby Afom· Flaqs.-From thp. north of associated with the limestone are beds of shale (the Dufton Staveley a hand of hard, thick-bedded sandstones can be ~"J'hales below, aud the Ash,qill Shales above), which are traced running north-east, and with an outcrop about half highly fossiliferous, containing many corals, crinoids, and a-mile wide to High Borrow Bridge; these are the Kirkby brachiopods as Orthis vespertilio, Heliolites intel'stincta, Moor Flags, brought in by a sharp sync1inal curve, and &c. ; by the similarity of the fossils the Coniston Limestone bounded on the south side by a broken line of fault. Passing is known to be of the same age as the Bala Limestone of southwards, we find th'lt the great mass of this sub-division North Wales. lies between the main road from Kendal to Kirkby Lonsdale on the west and south, and the river Lune OIl the east, Commencing at Sunny Brow, 2 miles south-west of forming all the country round Old Hutton, Audland, and Ambleside, we can follow these Coniston Limestone beds Mansergh. In this high and bleak district Benson's Knot .eastwards to the north side of Town Head, Troutbeck, (1,035 feet) and Lambrigg Fell (I,rog feet) are conspicuous where a north and south fault displaces the beds 1 mile to points. Fossils are numeruus, especially the shells Holopella the southward; thence they run past Stile End and nort,h gr~lJa1"ia, Pterinea retrofiexa, and Chonetes lata, occurring <Jf Stockdale to High House Fell; from this point the generally in layers, which as they decompose form lines ot -country is very ohscure, being covered by drift and peat, soft brown eartby rock in tile hard grey sandstone. The but we see the limestone once more at Shap Wells, though total thickness of this series is above 2,000 feet; it is of the here it is much broken up and altered. East of Kentmere same age as the Upper Lucllow Beds of Shropshire, &c. an interbedded mass of light flesh-coloured or pink felspathic Thus the Lower Palalozoic rocks of the Lake district (in rock (an old lava) is seen between two limestone beds; cluding representatives of the Cambrian, the Ordovician, -this i~neous rOL:k is 700 feet thick in Stockdale Beck and and the Silurian Formations) attain the enormous total Long Sleddale. The Coniston LImestone is seen again. at thickness of 36,000 feet, of which the lower half is found in Keisley, on the east of the Pennine Fault; and it is also Cumberland, and the upper half in Westmorland. The brought up on the east of the Lune, in Helm Gill, just out middle of this period was marked by volcanic operations on -side the county boundary. a grand scale, but the lower and the upper series of beds This well-marked calcareous stratum (the Conistorl were for the most part tranquilly deposited as mud and sand Limestone) rests somewhat unconformably upon the upon ancient sea-tloors. Borrowdale VulL:anic Beds beneath, and, like them, has a ,general southerly dip; the thickness varies from 300 to INTRUSIVE IG~EOUS RocK".-With the exception of the -600 feet, incr.~asing as we follow it westwards. basaltic rock called the Whin Sill, which is described further on in connection with the CarboniferQus Limestone of the SILURIAN FOHMATION (" UPPER SILURIAN" OF GEOLOGl Pennine Chain, all ~he intrusive igneous rocks of Westmor .cAL SURvEY).-The base of this great series is marked by land are found in the Lower Palalozoic strata. (I) a conglomerate bed, above which come pale and black The well-known" Shap Granite" occupies an area of 4 or ·shales and mudstones, called (2) the Stockdale Shales (about 5 square miles on Shap Fells, rising at Wasdale Crag to a 4So feet in thickness), which are the eqmvalent of the height of nearly I ,5°0 fe~t; it is a beautiful rock composed Tarannon Shales of Wales; they form a narrow band at the of colourless crystalline quartz, plates of black mica, and surface, not a quarter of a mile wide, immediately to the small crystals of red and of wllite felspar; but its dis south of and resting upon the Coniston Limestone, to which tlllguishing feature is the presence of numerous very large they are unconformable. The Stockdale :Shales have been oblong crystals of pink felspar, often from I to 2 inches sub-divided into the Skelgill Beds or Graptolitic Mud long, so that boulders of tllis rock look "like a lump of stones below, and the Browgill Beds or Pale Slates above; pudding studded with large raisins." This Shap granite is :their fossils include graptolites, trilobites, &c. largely quarried for building stond, and is polished for 3. Coniston Flags [including the Brathay Flags and the many ornamental purposes.

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