Occurrence of Boulder Clay at Huddersfield. 229 



Newsome (525 feet), Primrose Hill (425 feet), and Longley Park 

 (225 feet). 



It has been customary to regard the district south of the 

 Aire as practically unglaciated. Concerning the Calder valley 

 Kendall remarks,* ' So far as can be ascertained, no native 

 glacier occupied the valley, though the occurrence of boulder 

 clay, containing rocks of the Lake District, at the gasworks 

 at Todmorden, may be taken to prove the protrusion of a 

 glacier lobe down to that point. Through the rest of Calder- 

 dale gravels containing similar foreign stones occur in the floor 

 of the valley at least as far as Thornes, below Wakefield.' 

 But the more these deposits are examined, and especially the 

 remains of boulder clay on the slopes high above the valley 

 floor, the more does it become probable that the ice extended 

 much further down the valley. 



The deposits above recorded as occurring in the neighbour- 

 hood of Huddersfield, when plotted on a map, strongly suggest 

 morainic remains, not only in the valley of the Colne, but of 

 its tributaries as well, viz., the Holme and the Kirkburton 

 valleys. These deposits also enable us to connect the story of 

 glaciation between the Aire, as described by Jowett and Muff, 

 and the Don area studied by Lower Carter, with that of Rosen- 

 dale more recently described by Jowett. f Jowett showed how 

 the great ice sheet from the Irish Sea, joined by that from the 

 Clyde, crossed the plain of Lancashire, and invading the Pen- 

 nines, reached the ridge and forced a plug of ice into the head of 

 Calderdale. He indicates a fringe of local Drift, backed by 

 north-western Drift, down to Buckstones at the head of the 

 Colne. This was the limit of the area he described. This 

 sea of ice, however, extended further south, from Rochdale to 

 Oldham, and also invaded and filled the Saddleworth and 

 Greenfield valleys. Portions of these deposits are indicated 

 on the Drift map of this district on sheet 88 S.W. (Hudders- 

 field). There are also evidences in the clays beneath the peat, 

 of an extension of the ice along the Stanedge, which involves 

 the head waters of the Colne. 



Is it too bold a suggestion, that during the period of 

 maximum extension of the ice, when — to use a favourite expres- 

 sion with glacialists — ' the ice over-rode everything,' it may 

 well have crossed the head of the Colne, and also the Holme, 

 and made its way down these pre-glacial valleys ? 



Before reaching the Pennine ridge, the western ice, for a 

 distance of about thirty miles, had to pass over the outcrops 

 of beds of the Lower Coal Measures and Millstone Grits, and 



* Ibid, p. 88. 



t A. Jowett : ' Glacial Geology of East Lancashire.' Quarterly 

 Journal Geol. Soc, 1914, pp. 199-228. 



1917 July 1. 



