Professor P. F. Kendall — The English Eskers. 103 



The long ridge of gravel which runs from moraine to moraine is 

 the ostensible object of Professor Gregory's research, and whether 

 it should be styled " kame ", " esker ", or be fobbed off with a mere 

 " glacieluvial ", matters much less than that we should have a clear 

 and unsophisticated account of its structure, form, and relations. 

 As to structure, I have little to say, beyond the remark that my 

 observations of gravel-pits upon the crown and flanks of the ridge 

 do not confirm Professor Gregory's description of it as " part of a 

 thin sheet ". But when we come to the form the case is altered. 

 Professor Gregory declares that " it does not form a conspicuous 

 ridge; the slopes are very gentle". In proof of this assertion, he 

 chooses one of the lowest points along the ridge, and recites the 

 Ordnance levels along a road going out into the marshy plain. He 

 was, perhaps, unaware that like the moraines, the greater part of 

 this ridge is buried beneath the great sheet of Warp-clay, and that 

 probably not more than 5 feet of the ridge protrudes at the point 

 chosen. ^I could select profiles showing an emergent ridge of 25 feet 

 or more. Even if it were true, which I deny, that the gravels and 

 sands of the ridge are horizontally bedded, the onus would still 

 rest upon Professor Gregory to make good his assertion that they 

 are part of a thin sheet, and to show by what agency the very 

 eclectic erosion could have been effected. 



I have criticized three out of the many examples discussed by 

 Professor Gregorj^, and I find in the first a perfectly amazing lack 

 of observation, even when the work of others clearly indicated the 

 objects to be observed. Coupled with this a confidence in 

 generalization only equalled by its flagrant conflict with the facts. 



Tn the second case of the York and Escrick moraines, the 

 descriptions of their constituent materials ignores the detailed work 

 of the very authors cited, which perhaps is a venial offence, as 

 Professor Gregory contradicts himself, first describing the two 

 ridges as consisting of sand and gravel, and later making one of them 

 to consist of boulder-clay, capped by sand and gravel. 



In every reference to the form of these ridges there are grave mis- 

 statements, and the suggested origin of the southern ridge as " a rise 

 left by denudation " is perfectly futile in the absence of any 

 explanation of the agency by which the crescent was produced ; 

 moreover, the reader is left wholly uninformed as to the York ridge, 

 imless it, too, is a rise left by denudation, in which case the question 

 of the agent becomes still more urgent. 



After this demonstration of Professor Gregory's inability to inter- 

 pret even the most patent and obvious phenomena in the field, and 

 his, I hope, unparalleled carelessness in quotation, I for one, grateful 

 as I am to him for many ingenious and fruitful suggestions, must 

 refuse to accept without corroboration of more deliberate workers 

 either his facts or his inferences. 



