About four miles to the south of the village of Shap, in Westmoreland, there occurs a mass of granite, which has been long known to geologists by the enormous number and wide distribution of the erratic blocks which have been derived from it. It breaks through the highest beds of the green slates and porphyries of the Lake district, and is of comparatively small superficial extent, forming but two elevations of any note, viz., Wasdale Crag, and Wasdale Pike. It is, however, remarkable for its peculiar mineral character, for the glacial phenomena which it presents, and for the great alterations which it produces in the contiguous rocks, belonging both to the green slates and porphyries, and to the Coniston series. As to the date of its production nothing can be positively stated, except that it is certainly posterior to the formation of the green slates, and prior to the deposition of the Old Red Sandstone, the conglomerates of which are well exhibited in the adjoining valley of the Birbeck, and contain fragments of its harder portions, along with crystals of flesh-coloured felspar. Not improbably it was formed in the interval which intervened between the deposition of the Coniston and the Ludlow Rocks. At any rate, it is the youngest granite in the Lake district, no other having been found to exist above the green slate series. Mineral Character. When unaltered by contact with the neighbouring rocks, the Shap granite is extremely well marked and peculiar in its mineral structure. The