30 BLANFOUD : GEOLOGY OF NaGP^R, 



recent explorations of the deep sesLS, as to the presence of sand 

 and small pebbles earned by the slow currents of the ocean^ is a 

 totally different matter, but so far as it has gone, it has only shown 

 how sand and small pebbles can become mixed with oceanic mud. The 

 phenomena which Mr. Mallet endeavoured to explain by his hypothesis 

 of mud glaciers are, to this day, after far more investigation and long 

 discussion, referred by most of the best living geologists to glacial 

 action ; and there appears to me one insuperable objection to the expla- 

 nation of such rocks as the Talehirs by ' mud glaciers' or ' sUppage' 

 in the fact that such an action of slipping in the manner insisted upon 

 by Mr. Mallet, must necessarily destroy all trace of stratification. 

 The boulder clay of North-Western Europe is certainly remarkable for 

 the absence of stratification, but in the Talehirs the bedding is well 

 marked, and the form it assumes around the boulders is such as to show 

 the effect of the pressure excited by such heavy bodies on the soft bed 

 on which they were deposited, and their gradual envelopemeut by sub- 

 sequent layers of the same fine silt. 



[Note. — Since the preceding paragraphs were written, tlie Geological Survey have 

 been fortunate enongli to discover what had previously been sought for in vain- 

 large masses of foreign or transported rocks imbedded in this fine Talchir silt, the 

 surface of which was polished as perfectly as marble by a lapidary ; this polished 

 surface being beautifully scored and furrowed in parallel and straight lines, precisely 

 similar to the scoring, fun-owing, and polishing which rocks carried down by glaciers, 

 and ground ice, are so well known to exhibit. And further, the hard Vindhyan limestone, 

 on which this Talchir boulder-bed was laid, was also found to be scored in long parallel 

 lines, wherever the upper surface was freshly exposed by the recent removal of the 

 overlying rocks. After a little exposure, these scorings became obliterated by wearing 

 off of the surface, or were covered and concealed by a thin deposit of re-crystallized 

 calcareous matter on the surface, from water trickling over it, holding this calcareous 

 matter in solution. This wonderful confirmation of Mr. W. Blanford's original 

 supposition as to the mode in which this boulder-bed was, in places at least, 

 accumulated, was not observed, I regret to say, until after Mr. Blanfoi-d had gone to 

 the important work on which he is at present engaged with the boundary survey 

 between Beluchistan and Persia, or I should have preferred that he should himself 

 have had the opportunity of announcing the interesting discovery and modifying 

 his statements. — T. Obdham, 1872.] 

 ( 324 ) 



