10 VEGETATION OF THE PEAK DISTRICT [CH. 



moutonndes. It is not likely that traces of glaciation once 

 existed here and have been obliterated, as the moorland plateau 

 consists of uninhabited and unenclosed land where there is no 

 necessity to remove boulders. Moreover, on hills immediately 

 to the west, e.g., on the Macclesfield moors, and on the moors 

 some miles to the north, e.g., on the Ilkley moors, glacial drift, 

 boulders, and striae are found ; and it is inconceivable that all 

 traces of glacial action should have been entirely obliterated 

 from the moors of the central and eastern Peak District, and 

 not from the similar and neighbouring moors of Macclesfield and 

 Ilkley. It is highly probable, then, that the Peak of Derbyshire 

 and the high lands to the north, east, and south of the Peak, 

 stood up, even during the time of maximum glaciation, as a 

 nunatak, and that the ice-sheet fringed the hills of the west of 

 the district. The fluvio-glacial sands are probably attributable 

 to material washed out at the edge of the waning ice-sheet. 

 Barrow (1903 : 42) maintains that the glaciation of the 

 neighbouring district of Cheadle, Staffordshire, ceased much 

 earlier than in Northumberland and Scotland. 



River alluvium, consisting generally of gravels, occurs at 

 the bottom of most of the larger valleys. The gravels are 

 non-calcareous in the valleys of the sandstones and shales, as, 

 for example, between Hope and Grindleford, and calcareous in 

 the limestone area, as, for example, in lower Monsal Dale. 

 They bring about no important changes in the vegetation. In 

 lower Monsal Dale, a calcareous alluvial flat is uncultivated, and 

 the plants there are such as occur on the other calcareous soils ; 

 and near Grindleford, where a non-calcareous alluvial plain is 

 also uncultivated, the plants are such as occur on the other 

 non-calcareous soils. At the present time, the river gravels are 

 mostly under cultivation, chiefly as permanent pasture ; but a 

 moderate quantity of wheat is grown on the gravelly alluvium 

 near the confluence of the two streams, the Noe Water and the 

 Derwent. In early times, it is not improbable that these 

 alluvial tracts were characterized by woods of the " alder and 

 willow series " (cf. Moss, Rankin, and Tansley, 1910 : 122, et seq.). 



Peat occurs on the summits of the higher non-calcareous 

 hills, including the plateaux of chert in the limestone area, and 

 is fully dealt with in Chapter VII. It is remarkable that 

 very extensive deposits of peat in this country, both lowland 



