British Association. 929 
frequent examination of the phenomena, that the distribution to 
such great distances, in directions not conformed to natural courses 
of drainage, can be best explained by the agency of ice; 2. That 
it cannot be effected by glacier-movement on the land at its pre- 
sent absolute elevation; 8. That it cannot have been performed 
by iceberg-flotation in an ocean, if the present relative eleva- 
tions of the country were then the same as now; 4. That the 
excessive abundance of blocks near the Craig, and in the region 
fronting it to the east, seems to require the supposition of a con- 
siderable disturbing force, which greatly shattered the Craig, and 
provided a large quantity of removable blocks before the ice-action 
came on. On the whole, the author supposes that during the Gla- 
cial Period such a disturbance took place; that the Lake-district was 
depressed; that icebergs formed from shore-ice, and at moderate 
depths in the sea, carried away many of the loosened blocks, over 
the region far away to the east, while that was relatively lower than 
it is at present, and that afterwards the distribution of the blocks 
near Wasdale Craig took place while the land was rising. He com- 
putes roughly, that if the blocks now visible in the region round 
Wasdale Craig were restored to it, and placed in the granitic area 
now exposed, they would cover it in every part to the depth of 
about three feet. The blocks of stone now seen to be loosened 
around the Craig, and lying against its steeps, would not amount to 
1000th of this quantity; from which the author draws an argument 
in support of his views, of the preparatory concussions necessary to 
provide enough masses for the ice to transport. On another point 
of some difficulty he offered a few remarks. Both near the Craig, 
and at small distances from it, the quantity of other stones distri- 
buted with the granite is relatively very small, and the masses are 
of small magnitude. At very great distances, as 60 or 80 miles 
away in Yorkshire, this disproportion as to quantity is less remark- 
able; but the granite blocks are still usually the largest. The author 
believes that the difference of magnitude between the granitic and 
the schistose blocks may be understood by the much greater pre- 
valence of joints in the latter, which produces now, on some slopes 
near Wasdale Craig, pretty extensive ‘screes,’ while the sides of the 
granitic cliffs are encumbered with large rock-masses. The difference 
of quantity he supposes to be explicable by the peculiar conditions 
of the formation of the ice, which he conceives to have generally 
picked up the blocks by adherence to the lower surface of the freez- 
ing mass, and not, as in glaciers, to have received them on the upper 
surface. 
On THE FoRMATION oF CERTAIN VALLEYS NEAR Krrpy Lonspatz. By Professor 
Puiurs, F.R.S., F.G.S., &e. 
HE author desired to call the attention of geologists, who were 
engaged in considering the theory of the origin of the valleys, to 
the necessity of keeping in view, not only all the real causes which have 
been concerned in changing the level and modifying the surface of the 
solid land, but also the peculiarities of the rocks themselves, in regard 
