416 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETr. [Juiie 23, 



opinion glaciated up hill either by a great flow of land-ice or by- 

 floating ice. The mode of striation of the stones which have been 

 taken ofi" the fields, or dug out of one or both Boulder- clays, and 

 heaped on the road-side between Lancaster and Carnforth, would 

 seem to point to the action of floating ice. The striations very fre- 

 quently occur on more than one side, often on nearly opposite sides, 

 and sometimes all round the stone, in a manner indicating that the 

 stone was not only turned over during the process, but twisted round 

 horizontally. 



Beyond Carnforth railway-station a sect?* on of reddish Boulder- clay 

 full of stones lying at all angles has been exposed in a cutting. 

 South of the station the cutting reveals the most extensive section of 

 sand and gravel I have yet seen. It reaches a thickness of nearly 

 100 feet, and is about a quarter of a mile in length. It is so ex- 

 tremely varied as almost to defy description. Por a considerable 

 distance there are few or no large stones, the deposit consisting of 

 alternating beds of coarse and fine sand and coarse and fine gravel, 

 obKquely laminated and false-bedded on an extensive scale. There 

 are several interpolated beds or masses of unstratified gravel, and 

 towards the bottom a thick bed of laminated loam. The stones are 

 not striated, with the exception of a very few of the largest, which 

 are scratched all round. Some of the layers of sand and pebbles are 

 as hard as Eagberg rockery. Purther south the gravel contains a 

 number of very large stones striated in various directions ; it then 

 becomes one mass of stones lying at all angles, and as firmly com- 

 pacted as the stones of the Lower Boulder-clay ; it afterwards gra- 

 duates into a regularly stratified and false-bedded gravel, which fur- 

 ther on contains a great number of large boulders. The beds of the 

 Carnforth section are apparently contorted to a certain extent, but 

 not nearly so much so as in the sections near Ulverstone. The stones 

 are nearly all limestone. 



a. Derivation of Limestone Boulders. — Supposing the smaller 

 stones which compose the false-bedded part of the gravel to have 

 been amassed by currents, the large boulders could not have been 

 moved to their present positions independently of ice-action. But a 

 study of the physical geography of the district will convince one that 

 when the land was submerged to the depth indicated by the sand 

 and gravel, the upper parts only of the neighbouring limestone hills 

 or peninsulas could have remained above water. Under such con- 

 ditions land-ice could not have furnished the great bulk of the boul- 

 ders included in the Carnforth gravels ; and the rounded form of 

 these boulders would seem to point to their having been subjected to 

 sea-coast action previously to their transportation. "We are thus led 

 to regard coast-ice as the agency by which they were moved ; and we 

 need not travel far to find forms of ground and situations from which 

 the boulders may readily have been launched. The face of Warton 

 Hill, nearly opposite Carnforth, presents a series of platforms and 

 cliffs with scattered blocks and fragments ; but it was while walk- 

 ing from "Warton to Yealand that I was the most impressed with 

 what appeared to be old sea-beaches covered with more or less 



