In the beginning • Adam in Lakeland • Robert Harkness, Henry Alleyne Nicholson and Charles Lapworth • The first surveys • John Marr and Alfred Harker • Edward Walker, Robert Rastall, Fredrick Green, John Hartley, George Mitchell and their work on Lakeland volcanics and structure • Granites, garnets, the 'streaky' rocks and Mitchell's later work • The Skiddaw graptolites • The Skiddaw Slates and the Borrowdale Volcanics • From micro to macro: plate tectonics in the Lake District - a tangle of theories • Gravity, geomagnetism and granites • Some more PhDs, and the extension of Lakeland surveying in the 1970s • The stratigraphy of 'Otley III' • The great collaboration • Collaborating on the Skiddaw Group • Collaborating on the Borrowdale Volcanics and the granites • Collaborating on the Windermeres • Tertiary uplift • The glaciation of the Lake District • Nirex and the great denouement • Some concluding thoughts • References • Index