T. Mellard Reade — Glacial Geology. 319 



along its present water-shed lines and this is further indicated by 

 the common presence of gypsum in the Cheshire Boulder-clay. 



Presence of Materials and Fossils derived from the Soutli-East. 



In the Drift gravels at Wollerton, Shropshire, I found numerous 

 flints, as also to the north of the patch of Shropshire Lias, and at 

 Market Drayton in Shropshire. That these flints have travelled 

 from the south-east I have little doubt. Liassic, Gault and Chalk 

 fossils have been recoi-ded in the Gloppa Drift by Nicholson ; ' Liassic 

 fossils by myself at Wollerton, Shropshire. Waldheimia obovata is 

 recorded from the Drift-sand at Wellington, Shropshire, by Dr. 

 Callaway. In the Old Gravels above Wigmore Lake, not far from 

 Ludlow, the Rev. T. T. Lewis obtained some specimens of Lias 

 gryphytes (Record of the Rocks, p. 177). Beete Jukes says (Memoir 

 of South Staffordshire Coalfield, second edition, pp. 207, 208) that 

 Chalk fossils often abound in sand and gi-avel at Wolverhampton, 

 and between it and Shiflfnal, and sometimes broken fossils of the 

 Lias and Oolitic formations, and seem therefore rather derived from 

 the east than the north. Mackintosh describes coal found in Drift- 

 sand, near Corwen, which he, with a good show of reason, infers 

 has come from near Ruabon or from east to west. " Mr. Molyneux 

 has noticed what he describes as a remarkable tract of Chalk-flints 

 stretching across the high ground of Hanbury Woodend (north-west 

 of Bnrton-on-Trent) running east and west" (Deeley, Q.J.G.S., 

 vol. xlii. p. 459). Charnwood Forest rocks are found in the Boulder- 

 clay of Nottingham, and must therefore have travelled in a northerly 

 direction (ibid. p. 480). 



I have myself found pre-Cambrian rocks of the Wrekin in 

 Boulder-clay immediately to the north of the Wrekin. 



This drift of materials is either across or directly opposite to the 

 direction of the supposed flow of the ice-sheet. I have no doubt the 

 list could be much extended, and these facts cannot be reasonably 

 accounted for on the land-ice hypothesis. 



The Glacio-Marine or Submergence Theory. 



While the land-ice hypothesis, supported by much ingenious 

 reasoning, based upon imagination rather than facts, fails to explain 

 numerous phenomena, the old idea of submergence offers a much 

 simpler and more reasonable explanation of the drift phenomena 

 I have described in these pages. 



The dispersion of erratics, the presence of marine shells, the wear 

 of boulders, and the rounding of sand grains, are all consistent 

 with Glacio-Marine deposition. The preponderance of far-travelled 

 erratics in the high-level Marine Drift of Tryfaen is suggestive of 

 the same cause. I have found crystalline schist from Anglesey in 

 this drift in a water-worn condition, but the Lake District and 

 Scotch granites greatly preponderate. Yet Anglesey is directly in 

 the path of the hypothetical ice-sheet, and should therefore have 



1 Mr. Nicholson tells me he found one of the Lias fossils himself in the Drift, and 

 that although the others were found by the workmen, he has no reason to doubt their 

 genuineness. 



