44 Correspondence — Mr. D. Mackintosh. 



MESSES. KUTLEY AND WOLLASTON ON DEIFT. 



Sib, — Having examined most of the sections described in my 

 article in the Geol. Mag. for October, 1870, a number of times, 

 especially the sections to which I attached much theoretical impor- 

 tance, I feel called upon to rebut any charge of inaccuracy unaccom- 

 panied by instances, with diagrams or detailed explanations. Instead 

 of Mr. Eutley (in your last number) substantiating any such charge, 

 his facts (which I have no doubt have been very accurately observed) 

 corroborate my observations, while any want of theoretical agree- 

 ment between us consists to a great extent in the application of 

 terms. He calls the small mounds in the lower part of Kentmere 

 " moraine stuff with scratched stones "; I look upon them as an up- 

 land extension of the boulder-drift of the plains. He confirms my 

 observations relative to the glaciation and strise of the higher sides 

 of valleys taking an oblique direction to the "valley axis." This 

 obliquity of direction, however, I have found, in many instances, to 

 extend to the bottoms of the valleys. Mr. Kutley's discovery of 

 stri^ crossing the high ground between Kentmere and Long Sled- 

 dale, viewed in connexion with my observation of longitudinal 

 strige, can, I think, be more easily explained by floating ice than by 

 two great ridge-concealing and valley -ignoring ice-streams flowing 

 in different directions at different periods. I cannot agree with Mr. 

 Eutley in calling the stones found in the drift on the high ground 

 between Kentmere and Long Sleddale " moraine stones," and do not 

 believe that moraine matter, projDerly so called, could ever have been 

 spread over elevated moors, or shed on the summits of high ridges, 

 such as those which separate the larger valleys of the Lake District.^ 

 With regard to the origin of the parallel ridges S.E. of Windermere, 

 Mr. Eutley's remarks, as he himself implies, lead to no definite con- 

 clusion on the subject. If he will look for them in the neighbour- 

 hood of Windermere, I think he will have no difficulty in seeing 

 several small rocky escarpments, with pinel underneath, like some 

 of the fragmentary cliffs and raised beaches in the Channel Islands 

 and S.W. of England, though differing from them in exhibiting 

 traces of ice-action. 



I cannot agree with your other correspondent, Mr. "WoUaston, in 

 believing that the able and comprehensive papers by Messrs. 

 De Eance and Ward have well nigh exhausted the subject of drifts 

 and glaciation in the Lake District ; and I am sure that these able, 

 accurate, and diligent surveyors would be among the last to entertain 

 any such idea. I have devoted almost exclusive attention to the 

 drifts of N.W. Lancashire,'^ W. Yorkshire, the Lake District, and the 

 neighbourhood, for two years ; and I feel that the whole ground I 



' For remarks on the difference between valley-glacier moraines in which polished 

 and striated stones very seldom occur, and boulder-drifts in which the proportion of 

 such stones, though very variable, is generally considerable, and often very great, 

 see works and papers by Forbes and Lyell (Alps), Close (Ireland), and Jamieson and 

 Milne-Home (Scotland). 



2 See paper in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol, xxv., June, 1869. 



