The Waterways of English Lakeland Author(s): J. E. Marr Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 7, No. 6 (Jun., 1896), pp. 602-621 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1774152 Accessed: 27-06-2016 03:23 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:23:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 602 THE WATERWAYS OF ENGLISE LAKELAND. where the Nam Teng flows into the Nam Kong. It then follows the eastern bend, till, we are informed, it is only 40 miles to the Nam Kok flovwing into the Mekong. In these days of photographing the money a man has or has not in his purse, it is difficult to say tbat anything is impossible; at any rate, this is too expensive to be done. There is a story I am fond of telling, I don't know whether you halre heard it. It refers t.o the d;fficulties of tbe Shan roads. You have to climb up 4000 or 6000 or 6000 feet over what is lilre a ruin, and people going to the Shan States oufflht to be Alpine climbers. When first I went up with European soldiers, on getting to the top, one said, " Is this tbe Shan tableland, sir ? " I said, " Yes.' lIe said, " Wel], then, we've been climbing up the bloomina legs." The range is of the worst possible character of legs, and is 6000 feet higb. In Europe tunnels would be driven through it; it is not likely with this railway, and it is absolutely unfeasible. NVith regard to the Kunlon line5 it is asserted that at the Sunlon ferry tbe railway lands one in a c?tt-de-sctc of tbe hills; this is absolutely inaccurate. ANThen you get there, the country beyord is easier than before. It is practically absolutely certain that the railway can be taken on from the }<unlon ferry to Shunning-Fu, and from there it is nearly certain that the line can be carried down a stream to the Mekonffl, and from there again tG Talifl1, if the Chinese will allow it to be built. I am afraid I am wearying yo-u, but I have only to regret that the picturesqueness of Colonel NVoodthorpe's lecture has deplived me of much I should have liked to have said, and driren me to rather dull subjects. The PRESmENT: It only remains for us to thank Colonel Woodthorpe for having given us so interesting an account of the country, at Fesent of e:xtreme interest to Englishmen, and of which at present we know very little. We have also to thank Mr. Scott for the observations of great interest which he has made on the sllbject. We have had the rery great advantag;e, not only of receivinC this account from -Colonel Woodthorpe, and his very full account of the manners and customs of the people, but we have to thank him also for tbe Eleautiful illustrations of his paper. I am quite sure yon will all instruct me to return Colonel Woodtborpe ollr very cordial tbanks for his paper. p - . THE WATERWAYS OF ENGLISH LAKELAND. p BY J. E. MARR) M.A., F.R.S., SeC. GeO1. SOC. I.-INTPLODUCTION. THE attention of geographers has lecently been directed to the English I,ake District by Dr. H. R. Mill, who£e paper on a "Bathyinetrical SurveJr of the English Lakes"t is valuable alike to the geographer and the geologist. In that paper the configuration of the district is briefly described, the radial symmetry of the stream-lines noticed, and the former existence of a vanished dome of rocks over the area main- tained. The cause of the radial symmetry alluded to above has been discuesed by many writers, but it will be convenient to add some further observations upon it in tle present communication, which is * Paper read at the Royal Geograpllical Society, March 23> 1890. Map, p. 688* ? Geoyraphical Jo¢rna!, vol. vi. pp. 46 and 135. This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:23:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms rHE WATERWAYS OF ENGLISH LAKELAND, 603 luore especially devoted, howevers to a discussion of the callses which have tended to produce deviations from the general symmetry of the stream-courses. A discussion of this character affords an excellent illustration of the manner in which study of stream-lines throws light on forlner events in the physical history of a country, and tlle results obtained from a limited district are applicable over lnuch wider areas. The earliest writer so far as I am awares who called attention to, and attempted to account forS the radial stream-system of Lakelarkds mras BIr. W. Hopkins.$ He observed that the dip of tlle Carboniferous -rocks, which form a broken girdle around the distlict, is suffie}ently high to allow of their haviIlg risen far above the present surface, com- 430sed of pre-Calbonifelous rocks; and gave reasons for stlpposing that MAP OF THE LA19E DISTRICT, SHOWING RELATION OF RADIAL DRAINAGE TO GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. E PERMO-TRIASSIC ROCES..< E CARBONIFEROUS ROCES. = SILURIAN ETC., ,, ._*_ ASIS OF SILURIAN, ETC. ROCES. they actually did extend over the earliel rocks, which had been folded and denuded before their deposition, and that the radial drainage was originally outwards in all directions from the centre of the somewhat irregular dome produced by the elevation of the Calboniferous rocks, though the radial cracks which he considered necessary to give the initial direction to the drainage were probably of little importance -in that respect. The existence of Carboniferous rocks over the old slate rocks occupying tbe Lake District proper is also inferred by Mr. Aubrey Strahan,t on account of the trend of the rivers. lIe rernarks that "at the tilne the rivels began to flow the Carboniferous rocks e2rtended up the whole platform, of which the present hills and water- sheds form remnants, and that the courses down the slopes of these * c; On the Elevation and Denudation of the Distri{t of tha Lakes of Cumbel^lalld uand Westmoreland," Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc., vol. iv. p. 70. t Mem. Geol. Surveyj "The Geology of tha Country around Sendal Sedbarcrh, Bowness, and Tebay?" by Messrs. Aveline7 Hughes? alld Strahan 2nd edit., 1888, p. 2. This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:23:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 604 THE WATERWAYS OF ENGLISH LAKELAND. rocks, once initiated, were kept and deepened by the rivers, while the Carboniferous rocks were being denuded back into their existing scarped outcrop." The same reasoIl for the radiate symtnetry of the streams was givell by the present writer,$ in an article ill whieh he suggested a cause for the formation of the dome, and a somewhat late date (geologically speaking) for its production. To these questions I would refer briefly here. The movements which produced the Peurline ehain are generally admitted to hase been in operation during the deposition of the New Red Sandstone rocks which occur in the Eden valley, which were deposited in a trough between the Pennine uplift to the east, and that of the Lake District area to the west. The latter7 however, at this period does not seem to have been of such a nature as to produce a dome, but rather an anticlinal fold, eontinued in a northerly direction through Kirkcoudhright and Ayr, having the northerly continuation of the Pennine fold running parallel with it to the estuary of the Clyde. Between these two anticlinal folds lies the Ayrshire coalfield, with the New Red Sandstone overlying it, and also the New Red Sandstone patches extending from the Eden valley up Nithsdale and Annandale. Passing to the east side of the Pennine chain, we find the Liassic rocks dipping eastward at such an angle that they ought to rise far above the Eden valley, and yet a patch of Lias (or more properly Rhatic) beds occurs near Carlisle, indicating subse- quent movement about the position of the Pennine chain. Now, the Liassic beds of Britain were covered by a great thickness of Mesozoic sediments, so that the Rhatic deposits of the neighbourhood of Carlisle were probably eovered by thousands of feet of Upper Mesozoic and possiblf Early Tertiary strata. It is true that extensive movements of llpheaval occurred in Britain in the early Cretaceous times, but we have reasons for supposing that Cretaceous rocks also extended over the alea under consideration at one time. Moreover, the Lake District up]ift is in the form of a dome, and regular dome-shaped uplifts, having a symmetry like that possessed by the Lake District doine, are produced, as far as we know with certainty, in olle way only, by intrusion of a lenticular nzass of igneous, matter beneath, forming al laccolite t Subsequent to the deposition of the New Red Sandstone of Britain, we have no evidence of int] usion of igneous rock until early Tertiary times, vvhen the intrusions of plutonic rock occurre(l in Skye, Rum, Arduamurchan, Mull, and Arran, In a line orhie h, (f continued southwards, would pass beneath the Lake Distq^Ze t.