small size, most of them in hollows barred by the glacial drift which
covers a great part of the district. The central and most picturesque
part of the district is formed of great masses of volcanic ashes and
tuffs, with intrusions of basalts and granite, all of Ordovician
(Lower Silurian) age. Scafell and Scafell Pike (3162 and 3210 ft.), at
the head of Wastwater, and Helvellyn (3118), at the head of
Ullswater, are the loftiest amongst many summits the grandeur of whose
outlines is not to be estimated by their moderate height. Sedimentary
rocks of the same age form a belt to the north, and include Skiddaw
(3054 ft.); while to the south a belt of Silurian rocks, thickly
covered with boulder clay, forms the finely wooded valleys of Coniston
and Windermere. Round these central masses of early Palaeozoic rocks
there is a broken ring of Carboniferous Limestone, and several patches
of Coal Measures, while the New Red Sandstone appears as a boundary
belt outside the greater part of the district. Where the Coal Measures
reach the sea at Whitehaven, there are coal-mines, and the hematite of
the Carboniferous Limestones has given rise to the active ironworks of
Barrow-in-Furness, now the largest town in the district. Except in the
towns of the outer border, the Lake District is very thinly peopled;
and from the economic point of view, the remarkable beauty of its
scenery, attracting numerous residents and tourists, is the most
valuable of its resources. The very heavy rainfall of the district,
which is the wettest in England, has led to the utilization of
Thirlmere as a reservoir for the water supply of Manchester, over 80
m. distant.

_Pennine Region._--The Pennine Region, the centre of which forms the
so-called Pennine Chain, occupies the country from the Eden valley to
the North Sea in the north, and from the lower Tees, Yorkshire Ouse
and Trent, nearly to the Irish Sea, in the south. It includes the
whole of Northumberland and Durham, the West Riding of Yorkshire, most
of Lancashire and Derbyshire, the north of Staffordshire and the west
of Nottinghamshire. The region is entirely composed of Carboniferous
rocks, the system which transcends all others in the value of its
economic minerals. The coal and iron have made parts of the region the
busiest manufacturing districts, and the centres of densest
population, in the country, or even in the world. The whol