AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 231 



portions of that deposit are now to be met with 

 in Lancashire and Cheshire at elevations of from 

 one thousand to twelve hundred feet above the 

 present level of the Irish sea, and, consequently, 

 that there must have been great changes in the 

 contour of the country, probably even such as 

 to allow of a glacier extending from the lake 

 districts to Manchester ; still, it is most certain, 

 that the Till in our neighbourhood does not pre- 

 sent us with phenomena such as now are produced 

 either by lateral or terminal moraines. The 

 distribution of the rocks in the clay, the deposit 

 of the clay itself, and, above all, the beds of fine 

 laminated silt seen in the Till at Collyhurst, and 

 other places, consisting of layers thinner than the 

 paper upon which this is printed, and from this 

 circumstance provincially termed book leaves^ 

 seem to indicate that the rocks were conveyed 

 to the places where they are now found on ice- 

 bergs, and then deposited in the soft mud, now 

 clay, at the bottom of a sea ; while the partly 

 rounded and scored rocks belonging to the North 

 of Lancashire and the lake district, seem to point 

 out the effects of glaciers — not, probably, such as 

 are now seen in the Alps, but like those of Spitz- 

 bergen, which extend to the ocean, and of which 

 vast icebergs are the offsprings. 



