Proceedings of the British Association. 361 
involved the effects of running water in modifying the surface of a 
country. In glancing over the north of England, we find a great 
variety of rock formations, from the oldest slates to the newer ter- 
tiary ; the country generally slopes to the east, with the exception 
of the group of Cumbrian mountains, which form a local conical 
zone. One striking feature in its physical geography, is an immense 
valley running north and south, and passing through a great variety 
of formations; the Wolds of York being chalk, the strata near 
Whitby of oolite, the vale of York new red sandstone, while the 
carboniferous rocks are displayed in Northumberland and Durham. 
All the country from the Tyne to the Humber is covered witb trans- 
ported boulders, many of which are of rocks quite different from any 
near the spots where they occur, and some even not recognizable as 
British rocks. Could Mr. Lyell’s ideas regarding the office of ice- 
bergs be true, that they had been the means of transporting gravel 
to distant places—boulders of the Shap Fell granite had been found 
in the south-eastern part of Yorkshire; in the interior, there were 
great accumulations of them in many places, their directions seemed 
all to converge to a certain point, in what is termed the Pennine 
chain, but on this chain no boulders have been observed, except at 
one point, from which you look towards Shap Fell; towards the 
north they have been drifted nearly as far as Carlisle, but there is 
no trace of them towards the west. We also find boulders from 
Carrick Fell carried to Newcastle and the Yorkshire coast, and these 
have been drifted over the same point of Stainmoor. Mr. Phillips 
gave several conflicting opinions of different geologists, to account 
for this extraordinary transportation: the bursting of the banks of 
lakes ; the alternate elevation and depression of mountain chains ; 
and the supposition that the entire country had been under the sea, 
when the distribution of boulders had taken place.—Mr. Sedgwick 
then rose, and remarked, that the direction of transport of the blocks 
may have been modified by the surface over which they were car- 
ried ; and that Sir James Hall had been the first who had observed 
the Shap Fell boulders. These boulders Mr. Sedgwick had noticed 
on the shores of the Solway Firth, mixed with gravel from Dum- 
fries-shire. He alluded to the action of water upon the crests of 
mountains, and to the occurrence of transported blocks at consid- 
erable elevations. Jt was well known that mountain lakes were 
gradually filling up ; and he had shewn in a paper to the Geological 
Society, the relation of a lake to the age of the valley containing it. 
Vou. XXXI.—No. 2. 46 
