276 KEPOiiT — 1891. 



Nineteenth Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Prest- 

 AViCH, Dr. H. W. Ckosskey, Professors W. Boyd Dawkins, T. 

 McKenny Hughes, and T. (r. Bonney and Messrs. C. E. 

 De Eance, W. Pengelly, J. Plant, and K. H, Tiddeman, 

 appointed for the purpose of recording the Position, Height 

 above the Sea, Lithological Characters, Size, and Origin of 

 the Erratic Blochs of England, Wales, and Ireland, reporting 

 other matters of interest connected with the same, and taking 

 measures for their preservation. (Draivn up by Dr. Crosskey, 

 Secretary.) 



In their last report the Committee gave some of the general results of 

 their survey of the erratic blocks in the Midland district of England ; 

 they are unable, however, this year still further to address themselves to 

 the task of giving a scientific arrangement to the vast number of fa^ts 

 that have been collected in consequence of the number of new facts 

 which have been reported to them, and which it is necessary to record 

 before any more systematic generalisations can be attempted. 



The destruction of erratics, moreover, is going on so rapidly that 

 already many of those described in the reports of this Committee have 

 disappeared, and in a few years these reports will be the chief evidence 

 of the very existence of a large series of phenomena of great importance 

 in glacial geology. 



During the past year a N.W. of England Boulder Committee has 

 been formed, with Mr. C. E. De Ranee, F.G.S., as President and Mr. 

 Percy F. Kendall, F.G.S., as Secretary, which has already done valuable 

 work, and promises to accomplish a survey of the erratics of the district 

 it has undertaken to explore, so thorough, as ultimately to render a 

 scientific arrangement of the facts possible and enable their meaning to 

 be understood. 



The Committee have to thank the N.W. of England Boulder Com- 

 mittee for the following communications, which contain several features 

 of especial interest : — 



(1) The group of boulders reported from Hest Bank (Lancashire) is 

 of importance. The stones are exclusively such as might have been 

 derived from the country at present draining into the internal angle of 

 Morecambe Bay. Account must be taken of this fact in any attempt to 

 explain their origin. 



(2) The area occupied by drift containing Lake District erratics is 

 extended and help given towards defining the area of their distribution 

 on the western slopes of the Pennine chain. 



(3) The remarkable sporadic grouping of large boulders is shown ; 

 for example, in the group in the river Tame when taken in connection 

 with the records of Cheshire groups. 



(4) Evidence is given of the transport and glaciation of local blocks ; 

 e.g., by the discovery of a large angular block of Ardwick lirdestone at 

 Haughton Green, the nearest known outcrop of the rock being about 

 three miles to the N.W., as well as many other angular blocks of the 

 same limestone. 



(5) The mode of transport of some erratics and their behaviour 



