Proceedings of the British Association. 361 



involved the effects of running water in modifying the surface of a 

 country. In glancing over the north of England, we find a great 

 variety of rock formations, from the oldest slates to the newer ter- 

 tiary ; the country generally slopes to the east, with the exception 

 of the group of Cumbrian mountains, which form a local conical 

 zone. One striking feature in its physical geography, is an immense 

 valley running north and south, and passing through a great variety 

 of formations ; the Wolds of York being chalk, the strata near 

 Whitby of oolite, the vale of York new red sandstone, while the 

 carboniferous rocks are displayed in Northumberland and Durham. 

 All the country from the Tyne to the Humber is covered with trans- 

 ported boulders, many of which are of rocks quite different from any 

 near the spots where they occur, and some even not recognizable as 

 British rocks. Could Mr. Lyell's ideas regarding the office of ice- 

 bergs be true, that they had been the means of transporting gravel 

 to distant places — boulders of the Shap Fell granite had been found 

 in the south-eastern part of Yorkshire ; in the interior, there were 

 great accumulations of them in many places, their directions seemed 

 all to converge to a certain point, in what is termed the Pennine 

 chain, but on this chain no boulders have been observed, except at 

 one point, from which you look towards Shap Fell ; towards the 

 north they have been drifted nearly as far as Carlisle, but there is 

 no trace of them towards the west. We also find boulders from 

 Carrick Fell carried to Newcastle and the Yorkshire coast, and these 

 have been drifted over the same point of Slainmoor. Mr. Phillips 

 gave several conflicting opinions of different geologists, to account 

 for this extraordinary transportation : the bursting of the banks of 

 lakes ; the alternate elevation and depression of mountain chains ; 

 and the supposition that the entire country had been under the sea, 

 when the distribution of boulders had taken place. — Mr. Sedgwick 

 then rose, and remarked, that the direction of transport of the blocks 

 may have been modified by the surface over which they were car- 

 ried ; and that Sir James Hall had been the first who had observed 

 the Shap Fell boulders. These boulders Mr. Sedgwick had noticed 

 on the shores of the Solway Firth, mixed with gravel from Dum- 

 fries-shire. He alluded to the action of water upon the crests of 

 mountains, and to the occurrence of transported blocks at consid- 

 erable elevations. It was well known that mountain lakes were 

 gradually filling up ; and he had shewn in a paper to the Geological 

 Society, the relation of a lake to the age of the valley containing it. 

 Vol. XXXI.— No. 2. 46 



