154 8ir S. K. Hoicorth — Erratic Boulders in Drift. 



traces of glaciation in the mountainous region of crystalline rocks 

 of Charnwood, where such traces would be so easily preserved, 

 proving, in fact, that no ice existed there or passed over the district, 

 how can we account for the distribution of the Charnwood Forest 

 boulders by ice at all ? This, in itself, conclusive argument does not 

 stand alone. If the glaciers were local, how comes it that nearly all 

 the erratics from this district are found to the south of their jDlace of 

 origin and are not distributed all round it in an equal degree? 

 If the ice came in from the north, how could any of the boulders 

 travel north at all in the face of it ? Again, inasmuch as these 

 boulders from Charnwood Forest are often mixed with those from 

 Derbyshire and elsewhere in the beds where they are found, how 

 can ice have brought any of the stones? It could not bring stones 

 from the north, carry them across the Charnwood Forest area, 

 and mix them with Charnwood Forest stones from Mount Sorrel 

 and elsewhere, without leaving substantial evidences of its passage 

 in Charnwood Forest itself. 



Putting Charnwood Forest aside, we have to explain how the 

 Mountain Limestone and Millstone Grit of Derbyshire, the 

 Carboniferous rocks of Durham, the basaltic rocks from the 

 dykes of Durham and Cleveland, come to be mixed as they 

 are mixed in almost every part of Eastern England where so-called 

 glacial beds occur. How could the ice from the north-west come 

 down to Finchley and to Norfolk without stopping the passage of 

 the ice from Durham across the same path ? I confess I do 

 not know ; nor do I know how, when this ice got to its 

 destination, it could begin mixing the ingredients of the chalky 

 clay, which came from different parts of heaven, and redistribute 

 them as we see them distributed. The theory is too fantastic and 

 ridiculous for words, and the fact that it has so many adherents is 

 a continual reproach to nineteenth-century science. I have not yet 

 done. I have referred above to the Norwegian boulders. Upon 

 them I had a polemic in these pages some time ago with Mr. Barker 

 and others. Feeling it to be impossible to attribute their portage to 

 ice in any form, I ventured to suggest as a possible alternative that 

 they had been brought to whei-e they are found as ballast, or they 

 might possibly be Scotch rocks. In regard to the former alternative, 

 I found after I had written what I did that Mr. Clement Reid, a verj^ 

 careful observer, but with many of whose inferences I cannot agree, 

 had warned geologists of the great quantity of such ballast that had 

 been imported into Eastern England from Russia and Norway, and 

 had been distributed over its fields ; while Professor Hughes had 

 pointed out several cases of wrecked ships on the Eastern coasts, 

 where large numbers of Norwegian boulders had found their way 

 to English beaches. 



I am bound to say that, while giving due weight to these con- 

 siderations, the reports of the Boulder Committee of the British 

 Association, and especially Mr. Sheppard's recent researches, make it 

 impossible for me to maintain any longer the extreme position I took 

 up in my controversy. I am convinced now that the rocks are 



