134 MY LIFE [Chap. 



significance of, was a large mass of hard conglomerate rock, 

 or pudding-stone, which lay in the centre of the spot where 

 the three roads met in front of the house where we lodged. 

 It was roughly about a yard in diameter and about the same 

 height, and had probably at some remote period determined 

 the position of the village and the meeting-point of the three 

 roads. Being a kind of rock quite different from any found 

 in that part of England, it was probably associated with some 

 legend in early time, but it is in all probability a relic of the 

 ice-age, and was brought by the glacier or ice-sheet that at 

 one time extended over all midland England as far as the 

 Thames valley. But at this time not a single British geologist 

 knew anything about a glacial epoch, it being two years later, 

 in 1840, when Louis Agassiz showed Dr. Buckland such 

 striking indications of ice-action in Scotland as to convince 

 him of the reality of such a development of glaciers in our 

 own country at a very recent period. 



When we had completed our field-work, we moved into 

 Leighton Buzzard, and lodged in the house of a tin-and- 

 copper-smith in the middle of the town, where we completed 

 the mapping and other work of the survey. Our landlord 

 was a little active man with black hair and eyes and dark 

 complexion. He told us that whenever his trade was slack 

 he could make small tin mugs at a penny each and earn a 

 fair living, as there was an inexhaustible demand for them. 

 He was a very intelligent man, and he made the same 

 objection to the success of the railway that had been made by 

 many mechanics and engineers before him. This was, that 

 the hold of the engine on the rails would not be sufficient to 

 draw heavy trucks or carriages — that, in fact, the wheels would 

 whizz round instead of going on, as they do sometimes now 

 when starting a heavy train on greasy rails. He and others 

 did not allow sufficiently for the weight of modern engines, 

 which gives such pressure on the wheels as to produce ample 

 friction or adhesion between iron and iron, though apparently 

 smooth and slippery. This question used to be discussed in 

 the old Mechanics' Magazine^ and it was again and again 



