340 



TYNEDALE ESCARPMENTS 



will naturally project as rapids or falls. Observation is often 

 able to distinguish the difference. Delightful spots to linger in 

 are some of these secluded Linns and Denes ! The freshness of 

 morning lasts till midday ; wild flowers of summer live far into 

 the autumn, amid an almost primaeval wealth of vegetation ; the 

 sun's fiercest heat is filtered out by overspreading green; dod- 

 dered tree trunks, and stones covered with mossy arabesques, lie 

 along and athwart the stream, and from its gleaming, whitening 

 plunge at the head of the glen comes such a dreamy lullaby of 

 sound as seems to still everything with one long Hush. 



2 . Crag -Talus. — It is not my purpose to enter in detail into the 

 mode of the accumulation of screes or talus — the debris from the 

 wasting scars of the crags. "While, however, such details are trivial 

 when having no general bearing, it is otherwise when they bear 

 upon a large problem. An interesting subject of enquiry, but 

 one demanding at the outset data of a somewhat unusual kind, 

 would be the total amount of time during which these screes have 

 been gathering, in other words, the distance from us of the gla- 

 cial period. Such data are probably supplied by the discovery 

 within its talus of remanies from the ancient Camp on Gunnerton 

 Crag, which was brought by the quarrymen to my notice. This 

 will deserve to form the subject of another communication, when 

 the examination of the remains, and the exploration of the camp 

 by my friend the Eev. Gr. E. Hall, F.S.A., shall have been 

 completed. 



There is a point of some interest, however, which may be re- 

 ferred to under the head of talus. In the front of sandstone 

 escarpments masses of rock, separated from the parent crag by 

 fissures of various width, may often be seen in positions suggest- 

 ing that they are travelling down hill. The rent is far past the 

 frost-wedging stage, and in the cases I mean the blocks stand on 

 slopes insufficient to set them sliding. Such blocks are on their 

 way to form talus — but how have they moved ? 



In one of his essays on glacier motion the late Canon Moseley 

 gave an interesting instance of slow, sliding movement due to 

 variation of temperature, in a sheet of metal roofing on the slope 



