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.
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