button to main menu  Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, 1787

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Page 59:-
"[pro]ceeded along the top of this hill, ascending gently about half a mile, when I arrived at the top of Scales-Fell, which may be called the second landing-place. Here I came to the brink of the first of those hideous chasms which furrow the southern face of this mountain. Nearly on a level with this is the Tairn, of which more hereafter. This first chasm, though by far the least formidable, is inconceivably horrid; its width is about two hundred yards, and its depth at least six hundred! There was now no more climbing, till I came at the mountain properly called Saddleback, to which the others are appendages: after a steep and painful ascent of about a mile, I came to the brink of the other gulfs. Here a point of the mountain juts out like the angle of a bastion between two of these horrid abysses. I stood upon this, (though my head turned so giddy I could not go to the extremity of it,) and had on each side a gulf about two hundred yards wide, and at least eight hundred deep! their sides were rocky, bare, and rough, scarcely an appearance of vegetation upon them; and their bottoms, which seemed narrow, were covered with pointed, broken rocks, of many shapes and dimensions. Passing this, I arrived at the farthest point, where the mountain has every appearance of having been split; and at the bottom I saw hills about forty yards high, and a mile in length, which seem to have been raised from the rubbish that has fallen from the mountain. From hence I went to the summit, where I could see the Tairn, which, as I was elevated upwards of two hundred yards above it, appeared very small: here, likewise, I had a most beautiful view of the country for many miles round, and could not help observing, that the back of this mountain is as remarkably smooth as its front is horrid. I then descended towards the Tairn, which is an oval piece of water, about two hundred yards from East to West, and about an hundred and fifty from North to South; it is surrounded by rocks, except an opening towards the East, where they have evidently broken down. Standing near this opening I discharged my gun, when the echo was inconceivable: it resembled a peal of thunder bursting over my head, and was so prodigiously loud and fierce, that my dog (though a staunch pointer) crept trembling behind me.
"Hence I proceeded along the rivulet which issues from the Tairn, seeking for minerals, and found some, which I sent to Edinburgh, to that incomparable chemist Dr Black †, Professor of Chemistry in that University. I likewise found several immense stones, whose original places I could sometimes trace; and one in particular, which must have weighed near a hundred tons, and which must have been forced at least three hundred yards from its original situation: another I remarked of prodigious size separated about a foot and an half from its parent rock, and which cannot have fallen, as it lies now rather higher than the place it came from, as may be plainly traced by the veins and inequalities of each:- Evident marks of some dreadful convulsion! I then returned, partly along the rivulet, and partly the road I came. Upon the whole, I cannot help concluding, that this mountain has been formerly in a volcanic state, and that this Tairn has been the mouth or crater of the mountain. A collateral proof, indeed, I draw from the stones in the neighbourhood, which have almost every one of them the appearance of having been burnt."
Thus
† "That Gentleman, (after expressing his thanks in those terms of politeness which he uses to every one who wishes to promote knowledge,) objected to me, that some of the specimens I sent him did not seem to have such evident marks of combustion as he thought satisfactory, particularly some taken from the brinks of the rivulet and Tairn, as they contained small WORN pebbles connected together by a cement, which consisted of different earths united with iron and black lead. However, not long after, I met with a circumstance which seems to me clearly to account for this, and which I immediately communicated to the illustrious Professor. I was going towards Keswick, and, according to my custom, examining the edges of the waters, when I arrived at a place where there had been formerly a Smelt-Mill; here I found the flags totally destroyed by time and the action of the water, and the pebbles clotted together by the solution into a mass exactly resembling that I found on the mountain. Now the situation of the Tairn is such as excludes even the possibility of a work having ever been carried on there: as such, I think not a doubt can remain that this mountain has been formerly a volcano."
gazetteer links
button -- "Saddleback" -- (Saddleback, Threlkeld (CL13inc)2)
button -- "Threlkeld Tarn" -- Scales Tarn
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