34 



At its close the President said that although it was not quite in order to 

 propose a vote of thanks for the address in the field, he felt sure that all who had 

 listened to this very interesting paper would feel that he had not done his duty 

 if he did not at once express the pleasure that had been given them. The 

 character of this fine boulder had been thoroughly established, and would be 

 more carefully preserved henceforth. Their time was very short here to day, and 

 he had to announce to them that, as mentioned in the programme, instead of 

 visiting the Five Tumuli and the Roman Station, they would proceed down the 

 Blacksmith's Dingle towards the Rock House and the beautifully-wooded banks 

 of the Ithon, where the Lover's Leap is to be found. The Tumuli, supposed to 

 be those of ancient Celtic Chieftains, have been opened a long time ago, and, it 

 is said, that beyond a ring or two nothing was found, and the Roman Station 

 was merely a temporary station, and though it presented signs of entrenchment 

 and was approached by a Roman road, there was not really much interest 

 attaching to it. They were situated about a mile and a-half away, and it 

 was thought they could spend better the time it would require to visit them. 

 Before they moved on, however, 



Mr. E. Lees, F.L.S., at the call of several members of the club, said that 

 he would only add a few remarks illustrative of ice-transport in addition to what 

 Ml. Curley had so weU brought out with respect to the floating power of icebergs. 

 Striking his stick forcibly upon the huge boulder, as if he had expected again 

 to rouse it into motion after its long repose, Mr. Lees said that this monstrous 

 stone reminded him of the celebrated Plerre-a-bot, or toad-like stone, formed of 

 granite, which now lay far from its native bed-, near Neufchatel, in Switzerland. 

 But the Pierre-a-hot was much larger and higher than this stony mass at Llan- 

 drindod. It was the general opinion of geologists that the great Swiss boulder 

 had been conveyed on the surface of a glacier for above fifty miles across the 

 whole valley of Switzerland, when an enormous glacier fiUed up the distance 

 to the mighty mass of Mont Blanc, to the granite of which mountain it belonged. 

 He had himself paid great attention to the glaciers in various visits to Switzer- 

 land, and it was very instructive to behold the great masses of granite on the 

 surface of the glaciers — particularly the Mer de Glace, near Chamouny — which 

 had fallen at diflferent times in hideous ruin from the lofty precipices that 

 surrounded the glacier. These were slowly carried along by the motion of the 

 glacier, year after year, however great their dimensions, till, on arriving at the 

 edge of the ice, which was always melting during the heat of summer, they were 

 precipitated into the valley below, there forming masses of debris commonly 

 called moraines. The old moraines proved decidedly the far greater extension 

 of glaciers in Switzerland during past ages, and they had much lessened in modern 

 times. The great " rock tables," as they were called, that formed most formid- 

 able obstacles in a march across the glaciers, and which were elevated much 

 above the surface by their preserving the ice beneath them unmelted, were 

 magnificent objects to behold, and their annual progress could be traced. Here, 

 then, alone did he differ from his friend, Mr. Curlty, in proposing another 



