D. Mackintosh — Age of Floating Ice. 15 



talismans I believe in are : hard facts acquired in the field, applica- 

 tion of the collateral sciences, and a knowledge of what others have 

 done on the subject ; but that I do not believe in any talisman which 

 will enable men unacquainted with mineralogy or chemistry to 

 reason correctly on such subjects as that under consideration, or 

 which can metamorphose or transmute one rock into another, in 

 defiance of all chemical or physical laws. If geologists will bring 

 forward strange hypotheses, it is at least their duty to explain clearly 

 by what forces these are brought about, and p.ot attempt to conceal 

 their own ignorance by referring everything to metamorjpMc action, 

 whatever they may mean by such an expression. 



IV. — The Age of Floating Ice in North Wales. ^ 



Ey D. Mackintosh, F.G.S. 



Sea-coast Fringe of mixed Local and Nortliern Drift. 



WITHOUT occupying valuable space with introductory remarks, 

 I would begin with a description and attempted explanation 

 of the drifts along the coast of Ehos Bay, or what is now generally 

 called Colwyn Bay. Well-sinkings, clay and gravel pits, and coast 

 sections, very clearly reveal a quadripartite arrangement of drifts 

 similar to what may be seen in Cumberland. A recent well-boring 

 at Old Colwyn went through loose gravel 9 feet ; brown clay, 33 feet ; 

 and was stopped in blue clay. In Mr. Pender's brickfield, west of 

 the Station, the pit-section and a well-boring have revealed red brick 

 clay nearly 20 feet; sand and a little fine gravel, 16 feet; boring 

 drill stuck fast under 60 feet of blue clay. In the ballast-pit close 

 to the Railway Station, 30 or 10 feet of sand and gravel lie under a 

 thin covering of red clay, the former (according to Mr. Darbishire, 

 though this I overlooked) being underlaid by brown clay ; and the 

 sand rises up from beneath the red clay^ at a spot south of the road 

 between New Colwyn and Mr. Pender's brickfield. At the New 

 Colwyn Bay Hotel, on the coast, a chip and splinter drift overlies or 

 graduates into the red brick clay, which is underlain by sand and 

 gravel, while the latter rests on a yellowish brown clay (here much 

 obscured by artificial talus), from beneath which the blue clay crops 

 out in the bed of the sea. Between the new hotel and Ehos village 

 the cliff section shows the upper or brick clay resting on sand, be- 



1 Mr. De Eance must have read my articles on the North of England drifts very 

 carelessly, or partly forgotten what he read, when he replied to me in his last article 

 (Geol. Mag. Sept. 1871), for the reader will easily perceive that I have not said, or 

 intended to be understood, what Mr. De Ranee there attributes to me concerning the 

 depth of water in which the blue clay of "W. Yorkshire was principally accumulated — 

 the per-centage of the larger boulders in Peel Park, Salford— the conditions existing 

 dnring the Glacial period, etc. He has strangely, though I believe unintentionally, 

 misstated what I said on the latter subject in the Geol. Mag. for July, 1871. Ee- 

 ferences to some of Mr. De Eance's arguments will be found incorporated with the 

 present article. 



2 The sand or middle drift everywhere, but especially in the neighbourhood of 

 hills, shows a tendency to raise its head suddenly above the Upper Eoulder-clay, so as 

 to appear on the same or even on a newer horizon. 



