32 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



practically your determination is accurate. In Scotland there 

 are many dolerites in this condition, where one man would call 

 them dolerites and others diabases.' 



Formerly standing at the corner of Mercer Row the 

 principal street in Louth this boulder became a nuisance as a 

 rendezvous for loafers and idlers, on which account it was 

 removed, at a considerable expense, to the premises above- 

 mentioned. These premises were in old time a large county 

 inn, of which the c Blue Stone ' formed the material sign, and 

 there is still in Louth a publichouse, known as the c Blue Stone 

 Inn,' which has a rough representation of the boulder for its 

 sign ; there is also a tradition to the effect that it was once in 

 use as a Druidical altar stone on Julian Bower, a locality not 

 far distant from its present position. Chapter xix of Bayley's 

 'Notitiae Ludae,' 1834, is devoted to the c Blue Stone,' from 

 which the following extract may perhaps be amusing: 

 c Conjecture is endless, and the positive opinions of men who 

 have given some attention to the subject are very numerous and 

 unsatisfactory. Some think a land flood, others an influx of 

 the sea, others the Noachic flood [!] to have caused the 

 presence of this stone here.' 



HOW THE LAND BETWEEN GAINS- 



BOROUGH AND LINCOLN WAS 



FORMED. 



By F. M. BURTON, F.L.S., F.G.S. * 



IN addressing you on a geological subject, as I am about to 

 do, I do not forget that this is a Society of Naturalists ; 

 and as Geology, to those who have not studied it, may 

 perhaps have an uninviting aspect, I intend to avoid technical 

 details as far as possible, endeavouring at the same time to 

 show that, in point of interest, Geology comes quite up to 

 that of any other branch of natural science, and perhaps, I may 

 say, exceeds most of them. 



* An address, delivered at Grimsby, November 22nd, 1894, to the Lincolnshire 

 Naturalists Union, by the second President (1894-5). 



