Mm E, Hodgson — The Granite-drift of Furness, 329 



Dr. Mantell says tliat "boulders of tlie granites, porphyries, 

 syenites, and slaty series of the Cumberland mountains, are dis- 

 persed northwards towards Carlisle."^ 



Although long accustomed to see pebbles and boulders of granite 

 among the beach gravels of Furness, it was with surprise that in the 

 summer of 1865 I found them scattered in some profusion on the 

 high fields of Hawcoat, a small hamlet celebrated for its quarries in 

 Upper Permian Sandstone. As this place is situated only about one 

 mile from the sea, which, setting in from the north, divides the Isle 

 of Walney from the main land, it was easy to arrive at the conclu- 

 sion that this must be a marine drift : and three interesting ques- 

 tions presented themselves — namely, what was its northern and 

 eastern extension on Furness ? what its greatest altitude ? and 

 whence the derivation of the pebbles ? — to solve which I saw would 

 be an arduous work of time, but not unachieveable in a country 

 having no granite outbursts of its own. The result of my investiga- 

 tions, at once undertaken, was briefly given ia the JVortJi Lonsdale 

 Magazine, December, 1866. In that paper I showed, that being 

 totally absent from the long line of hills and moors north and north- 

 west of Ulverston : nowhere occurring about the Lakes of Coniston 

 and Windermere, or in the valleys proceeding therefrom : absent also 

 from the country at the head of the Duddon estuary : their extension 

 was thus probably reduced to the line indicated by the north and 

 south narrow vale stretching between Goldmire and Furness Abbey ; 

 further, that crossing what is now the Duddon estuary from the 

 Haverigg shore in. Cumberland, they had ascended the Furness 

 ground at the opposite point of Scale Haws or a little to the north 

 of it, and so had been thrown over the lands where first I noticed 

 them. At Eampside it was shown that they entered into the deposits 

 at the south cliff; thence they were followed as a shore drift towards 

 the north arm of Morecambe, where they were found to thin out 

 entirely. In like manner I believed them to have been swept up 

 the Duddon to Foxfield ; past Ireleth, Dunnerholme, Marsh-grange, 

 Soutergate, Kirkby, Beckside, and Angerton, a reach of six or seven 

 miles : but there I was in error. The material for the construction 

 of the railroad that runs up the estuary close to high- water mark, 

 was chiefly brought from the gravels near Furness Abbey. Higher 

 than Dunnerholme, therefore, the cursory observer is deceived by 

 this bank, which in more or less quantity has supplied the granite 

 to the marsh. The mistake was very kindly pointed out to me by 

 friends at Soutergate. As to the identification of the specimens 

 with their parent rocks, I can only say that, haviug long possessed 

 a fair collection from the Lake district, in Avhich are granites of 

 Eskdale, Kirkfell, Wast- water east screes, Skiddaw Forest, bed of 

 Caldew, Syning-gill, Brandy-gill, and Shap, I conceived there might 

 not be an insurmountable difficulty in the attempt; and although the 

 list then given by me, on the authority of the late Mr. Joseph 

 Graham, of Keswick, may have tended, by including a few syenite 

 localities, to throw doubt on the authenticity of the true granites, 

 1 Wonders of Geology, 1848, vol. i., p. 212. 



