Io8 THE GLACIAL PHENOMENA OF THE COUNTRY 



Woolsington Slacks respectively) that is 72 feet. The dififer- 

 ence is striking, and is doubtless partly due to the nature of 

 the materials through which the overflow channels were cut, 

 this material being compact rock in the former case, and 

 mainly soft drift deposits in the latter. 



We have thus seen that there is considerable evidence for 

 the view, that at the close of the Glacial Period the lower- 

 lying land was held by an ice-sheet which travelled past the 

 Cheviots from Scotland, and it may be permissible here to 

 refer to a pebble bed, which, although outside of the area 

 under particular consideration, may yet bear upon the general 

 question of the glaciation of eastern Northumberland. This 

 pebble bed occurs at Horsebridge Head on the coast just 

 north of the Wansbeck ; it rests on Coal Measures sandstone, 

 and is overlain by typical boulder clay. It contains a certain 

 amount of brecciated sandstone, but is composed chiefly of 

 well rounded sandstone pebbles, with a few sandy beds and 

 patches of clay. Its foreign contents are of particular interest, 

 and many years collecting has furnished samples of a great 

 variety of rocks, all of which may have come from the 

 Cheviots and Scotland. Such an assemblage of far-travelled 

 rocks is most probably ice-borne, and occurring, as they do, 

 beneath the boulder clay, may have been brought by an ice- 

 sheet moving southwards over the coastal regions before 

 glacial conditions had extended over the whole county. 



It may be, then, that the Glacial Age was ushered in by a 

 set of conditions similar to those which existed at the end of 

 that period, and that this pebble bed with its seal of clay 

 is the only relic of that early stage of glaciation, all other 

 evidences having been obliterated by the onward march of the 

 main ice-sheet. 



In conclusion, it is a pleasant duty to acknowledge the help 

 I have received from various sources. I am grateful to the 

 owners of several estates, to Viscount Ridley of Blagdon, 

 C. L. Bell, Esq., of Woolsington, Brodie Cochrane, Esq,, of 

 South Gosforth, and the High Gosforth Park Co. (through 



