VOL. XVIII. (2) GLACIAL BOULDERS, BOURNVILLE 167 



came down to somewhat over 1,000 feet, and lay at least more 

 than 800 feet above sea level in the Birmingham district, for 

 boulders brought far from the north-west occur on the hill 

 of Frankley Beeches, which exceeds that level. 



On the face of the indicator, so kindly prepared and pre- 

 sented by Mr Barrow, will be found a diagram showing the 

 vast extent overspread by the great continuous Ice-Sheet 

 when it was at its maximum expansion. Of course, this dia- 

 gram is to a certain extent theoretical, but it generalizes a 

 large majority of the most important facts connected with 

 the present distribution of the erratic blocks and boulders of 

 the Midlands and elsewhere. 



Now I am aware that I am speaking in a great part to 

 members of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club, who are 

 quite familiar with the geology of their own district, but whose 

 visits to the Birmingham country are probably few and far 

 between. Perhaps, therefore, one may be permitted by the 

 way to make a few remarks upon the differences between the 

 Cotteswold region and that of Birmingham. 



THE ICE-SHEET AND THE MIDLANDS 



The district of country of which Cheltenham is the centre, 

 and therefore that in which the Cotteswold geologists and 

 geographers carry on their work, is strikingly contrasted as 

 a whole with that part of England which has Birmingham as 

 its centre, and where Midland geologists and geographers carry 

 on their investigations. The distance between the two 

 towns in a straight line is about forty miles, and a circle of 

 about twenty miles radius from each town may, but merely 

 for our present purpose, be considered to be the outer limits 

 of the CheltenhaTTL and the Birmingham areas respectively. 



The main waterparting of the British Islands, dividing 

 at the present day the basins of the rivers whose waters flow 

 on the whole eastwards to the German Ocean from those 

 rivers whose waters flow westward to the arms of the Atlantic, 

 runs through both the Cheltenham and the Birmingham areas. 

 But the course of that waterparting is a very different one in 



