494 Percy F. Kendall — Glacial Geology. 



never occur either to the N. or W. of the parent rock It is, 



I believe, the law of boulder-transport for south Lancashire and 

 Cheshire." This statement has never been traversed, and Mr. Reade 

 has nothing to urge against it except his vague and contradictory 

 theory of the transport of the material of the Drift in the direction 

 of the existing drainage. (By the way. how does Mr. Reade account 

 for the Weaver producing the Widnes clays, which are in the valley 

 of the Mersey several miles above its confluence with the Weaver?) 



The facts given above may, I think, be best explained by supposing 

 that a great lobe of ice came in from the Irish Sea, pushed over 

 the low grounds of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Shropshire, and had 

 its final melting place in the neighbouihood of Bridgenorth and 

 Wolverhampton, whei'e an amazing profusion of northern rocks — 

 the "overshot load" of Mackintosh — and great piles of gravel and 

 sand mark its termination. Upon its left flank, in the upper 

 part of its course it was confluent with ice coming from the Lake 

 Disti'ict, and along the line of composition the thin trail of Shap 

 Gi'anite before alluded to is scattered. To the southward of Bacup 

 it followed a line sub-parallel with the Pennine axis, which, however, 

 it never ci'ossed. On the right flank it rested against the outer line 

 of hills of the great Welsh cluster, Halkin Mountain, Hope Mountain, 

 Frondeg, and Gloppa. 



Within the area thus roughly defined, all the indications point to 

 a movement in the direction I have mentioned, saving only the few 

 boulders of which Mr. Reade speaks as indicating a movement from, 

 not to, the S.E. I deal with them later. The strife exhibit a uniformity 

 of direction surprising even to the advocates of the ice-sheet theory. 

 In agreement with them is the orientation of large boulders, the 

 dii'ectiou of their sharper ends, the directions of Crag and Tail, the 

 " forced arrangement " of boulders, the transport of local boulders, 

 terminal curvature, and even, as Mr. De Ranee, and later, Mr. Strahan, 

 has remarked, the false-bedding of the Drift sands and gravels. 



Mr. Reade, will hardly need to be reminded that such uniformity 

 is not a characteristic of transport by tidal or drift cui-rents, such, 

 as must be the main agents in the propulsion of icebergs. 



Now, to consider the supposed cases of reversal of the direction 

 of transport: — If we eliminate the flints, which, in the complete 

 absence of evidence to the contrary, I can as well say came from 

 the N.W., as Mr. Reade can assign to a south-easterly soui-ce, there 

 remain some eleven exceptions to the " law," several of which are 

 not in the area at all, and regarding nearly the whole of which, 

 without any special pleading, it may safely be said that they are 

 at least as likely to conform to the rule as not. 



Of the eleven we have Lias accounting for four, viz. : " Lias " at 

 Woollerton, Shropshire, " Lias " at Gloppa, " Lias Gryphites " near 

 Ludlow, and broken Liassic fossils near Wolverhampton. Now, 

 besides the known, though imperfectly mapped patch of Lias near 

 Market Drayton, there is an outcrop in the north, near Carlisle, and 

 befoi'e these exceptions can be accepted as valid, it must be shown 

 that neither the one nor the other could have yielded them. Of 



