Nor does it rest here, for directly is our science under a deep debt of gratitude to the author of the “Excursion,” who sought for and obtained the aid of the geologist’s pencil to fill up the outline of his own sweet picture of the “Scenery of the Lakes.” Read side by side, one may well ask, whether the descriptions of the poet, or the sketches of the philosopher, are the more buoyant in diction, diversified in illustration, or pregnant with devotional inspiration. The work of Wordsworth and Sedgwick as a companion of travel is without a rival, in which, and out of the darkest pages of creation, we see the light of science falling upon, as if intending in verity to produce, an illuminated volume, and over which, at one and the same moment imagination is throwing her gayer and softer colorings. The physical structure of the district, in fact, furnishes the key to all its picturesque and delicious scenery. The geology and the poetry are the counterparts of each other. Wordsworth has drank deep at the fountains, and told the story of the one: the lessons of the other have been read by a kindred spirit, who has heard the mighty voice muttered in the dark recesses of the earth, and, in his own eloquently impassioned diction, Sedgwick has recorded the truths “of wisdom, of inspiration, and of gladness; telling us of things unseen by vulgar eyes—of the mysteries of creation—of the records of God’s will before man’s being—of a spirit breathing over matter before a living soul was placed within it—of laws as unchangeable as the oracles of nature.” And out of all the apparent confusion, and multiplicity of objects so blended together, he has brought “harmonies” to light, which are to have “their full consummation only in the end of time, when all the bonds of matter shall be cast away, and there shall begin the reign of knowledge and universal love.” [Illustration: Structure of the Cumbrian Group. 1. Granite. 2. Skiddaw Slate. 3. Green Roofing Slate, Porphyry, &c. 4. Coniston Limestone. 5. Silicious Grits. 6. Ireleth Slates. 7. Slaty Flagstone. 8. Old Red Sandstone. 9. Carboniferous Limestone. 10. Magnesian Limestone, and New Red Sandstone.] Thus, as seen in the preceding section, four geological systems are, in this charming district of lakes and mountains, all clustered together and rolled up for the convenient inspection of a few days’ rambles: The Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian: and to these are to be added the Granites, Porphyries, and Plutonic family of greenstones and basalts. CHAPTER II. THE PERMIAN SYSTEM—NEW RED SANDSTONE.