182 



and oft-described unconformity between the Older and the Newer 

 Palaeozoic rocks. 



Harkness was evidently still much exercised in his mind regarding 

 the great problem of how boulders of Brockram and of other rocks 

 from the low ground of Edenside could have been lifted a thousand 

 feet or more above the position of their parent rocks, and trans- 

 ported across the great upland tract of Stainmoor out to the shores 

 of the North Sea. Harkness, as I have before mentioned, had 

 worked out the subject of the distribution of boulders of Shap 

 Granite (which is usually found along with the boulders just 

 mentioned) as being a rock more easily traced in the drift, and 

 therefore one whose distribution might be expected to furnish an 

 answer to the much-vexed question then under consideration. 

 Professor Phillips had grappled with the same difificulty some time 

 before, and here is a letter from him to Harkness concerning it : — 



Oxford, 15th September, 1869. 



My dear Harkness, 



I am entirely of your mind as to the late date of the "Erratic" 

 group : i.e. late in the Drift period. I think this is certain for all the North 

 of England. And also as to the earlier date of the valleys : I admit most 

 of them as earlier than any pleistocene (and in this I include my preglacial) 

 deposits. In one of my very earliest papers on the Lake District (1827), I 

 show those valleys to have been of Palaeozoic date which contain the local 

 Old Red Conglomerate of Kirkby Lonsdale, Kendal, &c. Goldsborough 

 has been in my mind not seldom, for I found some years since that I had 

 given its height wrong, or had mistaken the summit. The hill which I 

 ascended had, I am pretty sure, granite on the summit ; many blocks have 

 been removed since my examination — now one-third of a century, or in some 

 cases nearly half a century since. 



I do not well remember auy blocks in the Greta drainage tiU you descend 

 towards Barnard Castle. Then you have them about Lartington rather 

 frequently, but that is not exactly in Greta drainage. The stream of blocks 

 widens in this part and goes to Darlington, Thirsk, Scarborough, &c. 



I have seen blocks at Langwathby and beyond (not the Magic Stones), 

 and on the line from Carnforth, Lancaster, &c. But in Cheshire the blocks 

 are from Eavenglass mostly. * * 



Ever yeurs truly, 



J. PHILLIPS. 



