ON THE ERRATIC BLOCKS OF ENGLAND, WALES, AND IRELAND. 243 



Tenth Report of the GoTnmittee, consisting of Professor J. Prest- 

 wiCH, Professor T. McK. Hughes, Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, 

 Professor T. Gr. Bonney, Dr. Crosskey, Dr. Deane, and Messrs. 

 C. E. De Eance, D. Mackintosh, K. H. Tiddeman, J. E, Lee, 

 James Plant, W. Pengelly, H. Gr. Fordham, and W. Terrill, 

 appointed for the purpose of recording the position, height 

 above the sea, lithological character's, size, and origin of the 

 Erratic Blocks of England, Wales, and Ireland, reporting other 

 matters of interest connected with the same, and taking measures 

 for their preservation. Drawn up by Dr. Crosskey, Secretary. 



The Committee liave received the following accounts of Erratic Blocks 

 examined during the past year : — 



Yorkshire. — Mr. "Woodall has examined a number of boulders brought 

 from the bottom of the JN^orth Sea north of Flamborough Head, and gives 

 the following account of their position and character : — 



North of Flamborough Head large numbers of boulders are found 

 strewing the bottom of the North Sea ; but they are arranged very much 

 in a belt, which is approximately parallel to the existing coast, at a 

 distance of twenty to forty miles from the land. The outer or eastern 

 edge of this belt is not well defined ; but on the western side it would 

 appear to have a sharper boundary, as the marks used by the trawlers 

 to avoid the boulders show that the line is well marked. 



While preserving a line parallel to the existing coast, it is curious to 

 note that just opposite to the mouth of the Tees the inner edge of the 

 ' rough ground ' — by which name this belt is known to the fishermen — 

 makes a sharp bend to the eastward, coinciding almost exactly with 

 a line drawn down the Tees Valley. I venture to suggest that this 

 large belt of erratic blocks is connected with the history of the giant 

 glacier which descended the Tees Valley, bringing, among other stones, 

 masses of the well-known Shap Fell granite. The boulders that I have 

 seen brought on shore — having been trawled up by the smacks — are 

 either of Shap granite or carboniferous limestone, and of these I have 

 examined from sixty to seventy specimens. The rough ground — as far as 

 I am aware — extends from the coast of Northumberland to the mouth of 

 the Humber. While the boulder clay on the coast line contains blocks 

 of carboniferous limestone and Shap granite, the glacial deposits in the 

 valley of the Rye and Derwent — south of the Cleveland Moor district 

 •^are composed of oolitic and liassic detritus, and are very different 

 from those on the coast, though only a few miles distant from each 

 other. 



Warwickshire. — A remarkable group of erratic blocks has been ex- 

 posed in some excavations made for building purposes in Icknield Street, 

 Birmingham, between Key Hill and Hockley Hill. The section occurs 

 on the N.W. slope of the hill on which it is exposed, and consists of 

 7 feet or 8 feet of glacial drift (the height slightly varying at different 

 points), which immediately rests on an irregular and broken surface of 

 the new red sandstone of the district, and is composed of about 1 foot 

 6 inches of surface soil. The ' drift ' itself consists of erratic blocks,, 



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