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Ch. XL] 



ICE-ACTION IN .THE PERMIAN PERIOD. 



22° 



an account of observations made by him on a brecciated 

 cono-lomerate of Permian 



age 



Wore 



shire and other parts of England, which had led him to 

 infer the action of floating ice in the seas of that remote 



per 



iod. 



His 



arguments 



are founded on the 



following 



£ ac t s: — the fragments of various 



imbedded in these 



some 



weighing more than half a ton ; they are very often flat- 

 sided, and have one or more of their surfaces polished and 

 striated. They are generally enveloped in a red unstra- 

 tified marl, in which they lie confusedly, like stones in 

 boulder-drift. In some cases it can be demonstrated that 

 the nearest points from which these stones could possibly 

 have been conveyed are the mountains of Wales, more 

 than twenty, thirty, or even fifty miles distant ; and it is in- 

 ferred that the only way in which they could have retained 

 their angular shape, after being transported so far from their 

 original position, is by being carried by floating ice. Some of 

 the specimens also taken by the Professor out of the breccia, 

 and now exhibited in London, in the Jermyn Street Museum, 

 have their surfaces rubbed, flattened, and furrowed, like stones 

 subjected to glacial action. One of the 



most 



from 



south-east of Bridgenorth, near the village of Enville in Wor- 

 cestershire. The fin 

 ter, consists of hard 



lame 



Cambrian errit, with a smoothed 



more 



rection,* a newer set crossing the older one. I have visited 



miaii 



nomena 



occur, and have observed all the ph 

 to, except that I scarcely ever found a large fragment in situ, 

 and never one large or small with a polished and striated sur- 

 face ; but my failure to discover examples of these last-men- 



means 



common, which may be said in regard to glaciated stones in the 



I am fully satis - 



many m 



fied that such fragments have been taken out of the breccia, 

 and the explanation offered by Professor Eamsay appears to 



* Eamsay, Quart. Geol. Journ,, vol. ii. 1855. 



