212 Dr Hibbert on the Dispersion of' Stony Fragments. 



like any specimens of the kind that I have seen in the adjoin- 

 ing south-easterly county of Derby, may have been detached 

 from some limestone hills in a more northerly direction. Other 

 numerous fragments which the loam contains are of sandstone, 

 shale, and coal, these having been most probably removed 

 from the extensive coal district of Lancashire, which is inter- 

 mediate to the red marl formation of Manchester, and to the 

 Westmoreland hills of grauwacke and granite. 



Thus, then, it appears, that a considerable bed of loam, to 

 be found in the south-east of Lancashire, contains imbedded 

 fragments of rocks, which have been dispersed from a far dis- 

 tant northerly district of Westmoreland, where the rocks consist 

 of granite, trap, grauwacke, and quartz ; that the same clay 

 contains specimens which have been removed from a remote 

 district of mountain limestone, and that it likewise furnishes 

 evidence of a similar transportation having been effected of 

 the stony materials which compose an intervening district of 

 the coal formation ; each of the districts, from whence the ma- 

 terials have been removed, lying to the north of the loam in 

 which they are found to be deposited. 



I shall, lastly, observe, that most of the transported frag- 

 ments of rocks, which have come under my observations, ap- 

 pear to be water- worn. I noticed, however, some fragments 

 -which showed few or no marks of attrition. 



These are the few remarks which I shall at present offer on 

 the transported materials of rocks that occur in the south of 

 Lancashire. They have been suggested by a consideration of 

 the interesting researches which Professor Buckland has of 

 late been so actively pursuing. Whatever may be the true 

 theory which the labours of this indefatigable geologist are 

 calculated to support, our obligations to him must remain un- 

 affected. Yet, it must be confessed, that we have at present 

 too few observations from which the important question can be 

 solved, whether the transportation of stony fragments, so far 

 from their native beds, be referable to an event of such an uni- 

 versal nature as the Mosaic deluge, or to far more partial causes. 

 But granting even the latter supposition, namely, that a partial 

 cause may have contributed to produce an effect of this kind, 

 still we must admit, that it far exceeds any ordinary operation 

 of nature with which we are conversant at the present day. 



