In this summer 1788, coming from the Isle of Man, Mr Clerk and I traveled through the alpine schistus country of Cumberland and Westmoreland.  We found a limestone quarry upon the banks of Windermere, near the Low-wood Inn.  I examined this limestone closely, but despaired of finding any vestige of organised body.  The strata of limestone seem to graduate into the slate or schistus strata, between which the calcareous are placed.  Fortunately, however, I at last found a fragment in which I thought to perceive the works of organised bodies in a sparry state; I told Mr Clerk so, and our landlord Mr Wright, who had accompanied us.  I have brought home this specimen, which I have now ground and polished; and now it is most evidently full of fragments of entrochi.  Mr Wright then told me he had seen evident impressions of marine objects, as I understood from the description, in the slate of those mountains; and he was to send me specimens so soon as he could procure them.

Here is one specimen which at once overturns all the speculations formed upon that negative proposition.  The schistus mountains of Cumberland were, in this respect, as perfect primitive mountains as any upon the earth, before this observation; now they have no claim upon that score, no more than any limestone formed of shells.

When I first announced my belief that such objects in natural history might be found, I little thought to have seen it realised, to such a degree as has now happened in the little circle of my knowledge.  In the summer 1791,

Professor Playfair was to pass through Cumberland.  I begged that he would inquire of Mr Wright, at the Low-wood Inn, for those objects which he was to endeavour to procure for me, and to examine the limestone quarry in which I had found the specimen with entrochi.  He went through another part of those primary mountains, and has found examples of this kind in the schisti; concerning which he has written me the following account.

“In a visit which I made to the Lakes of Cumberland in September 1791, in company with the Hon. Francis Charteris, I met with a limestone full of marine objects, though from its position it is certainly to be reckoned among the primary strata.  The place where we found this stone was in the district of Lancashire, that is west of Windermere Lake, on the road from Ambleside to the north end of Coniston Lake, and not far from the point when you come in sight of the latter.  Just about this spot we happened to meet with one of those people who serve as guides to travelers in those parts, and who told us, among other things, that stones with shells in them were often found not far from where we were then walking.  We immediately began to look about for specimens of that kind, and soon met with several; the most remarkable of which was in a rock that rose a little above the surface, about 300 or 400 yards to the right of the road.  It was a part of a limestone stratum, nearly vertical,