TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 8T 



The author having recognised in the Ardwick limestone the same 

 minute shells (Microconchus carbonarius, Murchison) which exist in the 

 rock, at Le I3otwood, Pontesbury, Uffington, &c. near Shrewsburj', 

 and found similar plants in the neighbouring shales, and a similar 

 succession of strata, was induced to visit some localities in Shropshire 

 to complete his knowledge of the facts before stating his conviction that 

 the limestones of Shrewsbury and Manchester were deposited in the 

 same great branch of the sea, under circumstances so very similar as to 

 render it very probable that they and the coal strata about them were 

 really parts of a continuous dejiosit. (ITie organic remains liitherto 

 collected by different individuals from these deposits were described by 

 the author, who ascribes to Dr. Phillips of Manchester the honour of 

 first recognising the true geological relations of the Ardwick limestone.) 



On the Removal of large Blocks or Moulders from the Cumbrian Moun- 

 tains in various directions. By Professor Phillips, F.R.S., SfC. 



This communication was intended to convey information on a subject 

 jiroposed by the Committee of the Geological Section at the Dublin 

 Meeting. Confining himself, for the sake of an accurate induction, to a 

 case within his own personal knowledge, the author described the geo- 

 graphical and geological features of the North of England, and traced 

 the distribution of blocks of granite, sienite, metamorphic slates, and 

 other rocks of the Cumbrian mountains in various directions. 



Contemplating this detritus, with reference to its abundance, the 

 form and magnitude and nature of the masses, the configuration of the 

 country over which they have been drifted, and the distances which they 

 have thus reached from their native sites, the author stated as a general 

 conclusion that in all the ascertained examples the distribution of the 

 detritus from the Cumbrian mountains was such as no existing watery 

 agencies could explain, nor any imagined simple relation of the level 

 of land and sea allow ; but that the phsenomena required the somewhat 

 difficult supposition of most powerful currents of water, guided in their 

 direction by the general configuration of the land as it now appears, 

 and assisted in their eifect not merely by a single elevation of land, 

 but by several risings and sinkings. The influence of the existing re- 

 lations of the masses of land on the dispersion of boulders was shown 

 by examples in the Vale of Eden, the Vale of York, the western border 

 of Lancashire, &c., and the Pass of Stainmoor, in all which, and many 

 other cases, the detrital masses were found to be accumulated against 

 the ranges of high ground, and never to have passed these natural 

 barriers except at comparatively low points. It was thus evident that 

 the causes, whatever they were, which produced the phsenomena were 

 not capable of overcoming, except in alimited degree, the natural obstacles 

 of the country, and this condition must be fulfilled in any satisfactory 

 theory of diluvial action. 



The hypothesis that extensive deposits of detritus, such as there de- 

 scribed, were accumulated before the land was raised above the sea. 



