ON THE ERRATIC BLOCKS OF ENGLAND, WALES, AND IRELAND. 343 
Buttermere granophyre. It is 1,150 feet above the sea; isolated; is 
exposed on the surface ; and rests on the Millstone Grit. 
(4) A little to north of Windgather Rocks, Taxal. The stone was 
on the road leading from the farmhouse. The observations were made 
just after the stone had been broken up. Approximate weight, 2 tons ; 
rounded (?); had been moved. It is one of the well-known Borrodale 
andesitic lavas, such as abound in the boulder clay in Lancashire and 
Cheshire. It is 1,150 feet above the sea, and rests on the Millstone 
Grit. 
The three boulders described as occurring at the Windgather Rocks 
are all exposed on the surface. There are no beds of gravel, sand or clay 
visible in the neighbourhood, but a good many foreign stones of small 
dimensions are lying about. Amongst them I saw the granite of Loch 
Doon. 
Mr. Kendall reports a striking observation he has made with respect 
to the distribution of boulders derived from local rocks in Lancashire and 
Cheshire. He has made a careful examination of these boulders as likely 
to afford valuable indications of the agency by which their transport was 
effected. There are (he states) in this district two rocks which are very 
easily identified, and whose outcrops are well known, viz. the Ardwick 
limestone and the fossiliferons Permian limestones. Mr. Kendall has 
searched carefully for these two rocks, and briefly states the result as 
follows: boulders in this district never occur either to the N. or W. of the 
parent rock. 
A very striking example of this occurs, Mr. Kendall writes, in the 
railway cutting between Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield, and Slade Lane, 
Burnage. At the base of the glacial beds exposed, fragments of the 
Permian marl and sandstones were abundant; and of the Ardwick lime- 
stone massive blocks had been torn off and embedded in the boulder clay 
at all angles, and some of them have received ice scratches, but the 
movement which dislodged them was, broadly speaking, from W. to E., 
and in no single instance could a fragment be found to the westward of 
its natural outcrop. Mr. Kendall adds that this is no isolated observation 
at a single exposure, but that it is, he believes, the law of boulder trans- 
port for S. Lancashire and Cheshire. 
Should more extended observations coufirm this very remarkable 
generalisation, light will be thrown upon some of the most difficult 
problems in glacial geology. 
Mr. Kendall draws attention to another very important: point con- 
nected with the distribution of erratics. After very diligent search he 
has not been able to find a single Manx or Irish rock in Lancashire. The 
flints are usually referred to the Irish chalk; but he contends that their 
proximate derivation may have been from some other source—as, for 
example, from some bed of gravel which may have been deposited in the 
Trish Sea in pre-Glacial times. \ 
Without pronouncing any opinion on the theoretical questions in- 
volved, the Committee would strongly urge upon all who are engaged in 
these researches the importance of carefully recording the facts connected 
with the distribution of boulders, whether derived from bed rocks or from 
distant mountains, and also of paying attention to the boulders which are 
absent as well as to those which are present in any district. 
Observations similar to those made by Mr. Kendall, if extended over 
England, will yield results of the greatest possible value. 
