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A LARGE GLACIAL BOULDER AT WHORLTON. 



By the Rev. J. C Fowler, b.a., f.g.s. 



I have recently had a photograph taken of an immense 

 boulder which lies in the beck about three-quarters of a mile 

 from the village of Swainby, up Scugdale. The block 

 accompanying this paper is from the photograph, which 

 shows the erratic in situ It is of Snap Granite, sub-angular 

 like the majority of erratics shoving what rough usage it 

 has had — long continued — so as to wear down all the angles 

 even of such hard stone. It lies in the moraine of the great 

 glacier which pressed up Scugdale and overcame the local 

 one coming down the valley., as these valleys probably all 

 contained local glaciers, and here it has been at rest for 

 some 50,000 years ; which appears to be a fair estimate of 

 the time since the Glacial Period according to our present 

 knowledge, the tendency of the present time, however, being 

 to lower that estimate somewhat. 



The boulder is very large, the dimensions being as follows : 

 Round the stone at the water level it is 23 feet. From the 

 water level at the left (looking at the photograph) over the 

 back down to the water level on the right 17ft. 2in. In the 

 foreground, from the water level over the highest point 

 to the water on the other side 10ft. We do not know the 

 shape under ground or how far it rests out of sight. 



The distance from Shap on the Pennine Chain in "West- 

 moreland in a straight line is sixty miles or more and this 

 boulder must have been brought with countless others down 

 the direction of the Tees Valley. There are boulders of 

 Shap Granite and Basalt (chiefly) scattered over the North 



