HA RD WICK& S SCIENCE- G OSS I P. 



59 



the wall is composed have perhaps a still more 

 wonderful tale to tell. So far as my memory serves 

 me, the boulders we find in North Notts (where the 

 New Red predominates, as it does in North 

 Cumberland) are almost entirely quartzite ; and 

 when one has overhauled a few heaps of boulders by 

 the roadside, a strange and melancholy monotony is 

 found to prevail among them. Not so in Cumber- 

 land, however, for every new wall and every fresh 

 heap of boulders examined reveals something unseen 

 before until the examination has been proceeded with 

 for a considerable time. Quartzite-pebbles are here, 

 it is true, but then we find a. multitude of other forms 

 as well, to relieve the monotony and introduce some 

 new cause for wonder and surprise. Here it is a 

 "cobble," there a piece of well-marked grey or red 

 granite, here a piece of mountain-limestone, and there 

 some lumps of crumbling sandstone ; and these, from 

 various points of the compass, jumbled together in 

 hopeless confusion ! What can be the meaning of it 

 all? 



It must be observed in the first place that the 

 general trend of the glaciers was from the northward, 

 though not necessarily due north and south. The 

 physical geography of the district traversed by the 

 glaciers would have a more or less material influence 

 ■on their local movements ; but we do not know of 

 any glacier originating in the south and moving 

 .northwards. Hence we shall find, as a rule, that 

 the boulders can be traced from a more northerly 

 district than that in which they are found imbedded 

 in the boulder-clay. Thus the pebbles found around 

 Liverpool in the glacial deposits have been clearly 

 traced, by the geological surveyor employed by 

 Government, to the mountains of the Lake District, 

 sixty or seventy miles away to the north ("Town 

 Geology," chap, ii., p. 41). I say "as a rule," for 

 in Cumberland we are obliged to face the fact that 

 boulders are found many miles north of their home ; 

 and this would seem at first sight to indicate that the 

 glaciers had originated in the south. "What the real 

 explanation is may be best seen by the charts and papers 

 published in the "Transactions of the Cumberland 

 and Westmoreland Association, especially vol. v. 

 (1879-80), p. 151, et scq.; vol. vii. (1881-82). 

 Quartz, felsite pebbles from Helvellyn and St. 

 John's Vale, are mixed up with the grey granite of 

 cloud-capped Criffel which stands on the opposite 

 side of the Solway overlooking Silloth and Maryport, 

 and the green basaltic rock, known locally as 

 "cobbles," is abundantly represented in the 

 boulders. We are brought face to face with stones 

 which have had an igneous origin, and have been 

 poured out of the bowels of the earth in form of lava, 

 just as is done to-day by Vesuvius and other active 

 volcanoes ; rext we meet with limestone-blocks full 

 of animal remains, and anon we are face to face with 

 corals, and early coal measures or later Permians in the 

 shape of shales or sandstone. The fine even texture 



of this block tells us that it was once like water, and 

 that the denser matter which came with it from the 

 bowels of the earth had fallen by its own weight 

 lower down in the stream of lava which ages ago 

 came belching forth from some British volcano. 

 This boulder next it beautifully displays the pro- 

 cesses of crystallisation which have been going on in 

 past millenniums ; that pebble speaks of seas in which 

 curious monsters of the deep could disport them- 

 selves, till death caused them to add their abodes to 

 the mass of calcareous matter which was forming the 

 future mountain-limestone at the bottom of the 

 abyss. And not to be too prolix, this piece of red 

 rock tells of quartz rolled and ground and polished 

 into tiny grains under the action of wind and water, 

 coated with peroxide of iron, and curiously changed 

 in the course of ages into the new red sandstone, 

 which we now see from Dumfries to Penrith, and 

 through many parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, Northamptonshire, and even as far south 

 as Bristol and Torquay. If we can read between the 

 lines we are able to see in this mud-capped dyke, as 

 the antiquary sees in a musty manuscript, or the 

 philologist in a number of old words, a history of 

 surpassing interest and charm. We can go back to 

 the early periods of the earth's history, when it was 

 intensely hot in these northern latitudes, then 

 gradually travel along the highway of time till the 

 great ice age (or ages) came ; and having seen the 

 effects of frost and ice, and inquired into the cause of 

 this immense change, we watch the rolling back of 

 the glaciers again under the influence of reluming 

 heat, till we come down to the age when the climate 

 was of a more rational type, and man began to take 

 his part in the great play of life. 

 Carlisle. 



POND LIFE IN THE PARKS. 



IN looking over my list of "finds" for the last, 

 three years, I have been much surprised at the 

 number and variety of forms found, certainly much 

 more than I should have fancied would have existed, 

 speaking comparatively, in the ornamental water of 

 our public parks ; in this account, of course, I am 

 alluding to Birmingham only. % I have been pleased 

 to chronicle the finding of some extremely good 

 things, especially in the Rotiferse and Infusoria. I 

 mention this because it may be the means of saving 

 some of our friends a long journey sometimes, when 

 they might, for all they know, find the object sought 

 after close to their own doors, so to speak, and very 

 near as convenient as turning on the tap and getting 

 one's pond life in that way. If I remember right, 

 our pond-hunting friends did do so some time ago, 

 and got some extremely choice things through the 

 medium of the town water supply ; and now, as our 

 chief local pond-hunting resort gets worse and worse 



