ON ERRATIC BLOCKS OF THE BRITISH ISLES 3i9 



En-atic Bloclcs of the British Isles. — Second Report of the Committee, 

 consisting of Professor E. Hull {Chairman), Professor T. G. 

 BoNNEY, Mr. p. F. Kendall {Secretary), Mr. C. E. De Range, 

 Professor W. J. Sollas, Mr. R. H. Tiddeman, Rev. S. N. Har- 

 rison, Mr. J. Horne, Mr. Dugald Bell, Mr. F. M. Burton, and 

 Mr. J. LoMAS, to investigate the Erratic Bloclis of the British Isles 

 and to tahe measures for their iireservation. 



The operations of the Committee during the year have been less pro- 

 ductive of immediate results than was anticipated. 



The number of boulders recorded has been small, but several facts of 

 great interest have been brought to light. The diminution is due princi- 

 pally to the fact that a large section of the work which is carried out in 

 Yorkshire, viz., the enumeration of the boulders on the coast of Holderness, 

 has been carried to virtual completion, but other contributory causes have 

 been the inability of the Secretary to devote so large an amount of time as 

 he had hoped to the work of the Committee, and the severe loss sustained 

 by the Yorkshire Boulder Committee in the death of their most capable 

 and active Honorary Secretary, Mr. Thomas Tate, F.G.S. The respective 

 secretaries of the Lincolnshire Boulder Committee and the Geological 

 Section of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club have been unable to prepare 

 their reports in time for publication this year. 



The first feature of importance to be noticed is the large number of 

 additional records of Shap gz'anite boulders ; the occurrence of this rock 

 in Weai'dale is interesting, as showing the broadening of the area of dis- 

 persion after the Pennine Chain was crossed. 



Dr. Ricketts' observation of many pebbles of Serpentine at Birkenhead 

 is remarkable, as only one fragment of that petrological type appears to 

 have been observed previously in the area of Lancashire and Cheshire. 



The occurrence of pebbles of chalk and flint in North-Western 

 Nottinghamshire is a fact of importance, and may perhaps be taken to 

 indicate an extension of the chalky Boulder-clay. 



The Noblethorpe erratic belongs evidently to the same dispersion as 

 the remarkable group of erratics in the Royston district, reported upon 

 two years ago, but it is several miles further west than any boulders 

 previously recorded in the district. 



Some noteworthy additions are made to our knowledge of the distri- 

 bution of the now well-known Norwegian rocks, the Augite-syenite of 

 Laui'vik, and the Rhomb-porphyries of the Christiania district. Mr. 

 Kendall has found the former at Saltburn and the latter at Staithes, 

 those being the most northerly stations at which they have been found. 

 Both were beach pebbles, but the travel of beaches on that coast is from 

 north to south, so there is no fear of their being wrongly ascribed to a 

 position to northward of their original locus as boulders. 



Mr. Stather has found both rocks as boulders in situ in a lower bed of 

 Boulder- clay at Louth in Lincolnshire. 



Far exceeding this in interest, however, is the recognition by an 

 eminent Swedish geologist, Dr. Munthe, of two rocks in Mr. Stather's 

 collection, whose place of origin is on the shores of the Baltic. A disposi- 

 tion has been manifested to assume that, because the only Scandinavian 



