328 Burton: Lincolnshire Coast Boulders. 
being derived from the cliffs and boulder deposits south of the 
Humber; and if any came from the Yorkshire coast it muSt 
have been before the Humber gap was formed: a time so dis- 
tant that to speak about it with authority would be impossible, 
and speculation idle. 
Since writing the above I have received a letter from 
Mr, Wheeler, and send the following extracts from tt:— 
‘I cannot follow Mr. Harker as to what happened in remote 
times. My geology is only that relating to what is going on 
now, and is of use to engineers in sea coast protection and other 
works. [ do not accept his theory as to Spurn Point. To quote 
Camden as an authority on such a matter counts for nothing. 
He was a very good general observer, but, like the old chart 
and map makers, ‘‘de minimis non curant,” to use an adapted 
legal term. Spurn Point was worse to get at then than it is 
now, and I cannot conceive that he would have devoted his 
time and energies to a few yards of shingle beach. 
‘Of one thing I am as certain as one can be about anything of 
the sort, that there is no travel of stone from the north to the south 
side of the Humber now. The millions of tons of material that 
must have washed, according to Mr. Harker, from the York- | 
shire cliffs show no trace of their existence along the Lincolnshire 
coast. It is one mass of sand resting on soft clay, under which 
is a layer of peat and trees, and then the boulder clay with stones. 
‘As regards the ‘millions of tons,” this is surely a 
exaggeration. The Yorkshire cliffs consist of boulder clay ; 
the stones do not form, probably, one-tenth of the mass. Many 
of them, in being rolled about, get ground to sand; and the 
bulk of the material goes away in suspension, and is deposited 
on the bed of the sea. 
‘] made a purpose journey to Sutton and Mablethorpe a few 
days ago to have another look at the beach. The stones 
are few and far between. Here and there a small packet is 
gathered,.and this principally at low water, or say the line of 
three-quarter ebb. They are not buried in the sand, as, for 
a large area between low water and high water, the beach has 
been denuded and the soft clay exposed 
‘If the stones had travelled in number from the Yorkshire 
cliffs, they would have been aggregated in a mound at or about 
the level of high water, like all other shingle banks; instead of 
which, such few as there are are not in this position, and are 
only collected in small heaps near the groynes, or in holes in the 
clay. 
“Naturalist, 
