498 THE CHALK AND BOULDER- CLAY NEAR ROYSTON. [Aug. I906, 



of explanation ; but, in this case, these were altogether dispropor- 

 tionate to the mass of positive evidence obtained from many 

 converging lines of investigation. In the particular instance under 

 discussion, it was necessary to remember that the border of the 

 Eastern Drift-sheet in Britain, from Banff to Norfolk, was character- 

 ized by the occurrence at intervals of huge displaced masses of the 

 solid strata that were often actually incorporated with the Boulder- 

 Clay ; and similar masses were also found in the prolongation of 

 this belt across the Eastern Midland counties of England. With 

 this definite evidence for the breaking-up of the underlying strata 

 by Glacial agency, Mr. Woodward's interpretation of the Royston 

 phenomena was in perfect agreement; and, since the general evidence 

 for the former extension of land-ice over the same region was so 

 weighty, it was surely most reasonable to assign the disturbances 

 in question to the influence of land-ice. 



The Author, in replying to Mr. Woodward, said that he was 

 well acquainted with the rubbly weathering of the surface-Chalk 

 and the making of pebbles, but could not admit that those so 

 common in the Boulder-Clay had been produced by the former 

 action. They were true water worn pebbles. He did not agree 

 that the railway-section quoted by Mr. Woodward could only be 

 explained by the action of land-ice. He did not, of course, deny 

 that flexures and dislocations existed in the Chalk near Royston 

 and elsewhere, but did deny that these could be ascribed to the 

 notion of land-ice. He could not even agree with Prof. Dawkins 

 that the slopes near Royston showed any signs of ice-action : they 

 became steeper farther west, and the difference in hardness and 

 •dip would account for their being more gentle than in the southern 

 scarps of the North Downs. Mr. Lamplugh had asserted that diffi- 

 culties would vanish if an ice-sheet were once accepted. That might 

 be; for the speaker would find many difficulties vanish in theology, 

 if he could accept the leadership of an infallible guide — but unfortu- 

 nately he could not. Mr. Lamplugh complained that he raised 

 small difficulties, and did not view the subject as a whole. Why, he 

 had been raising large-scale difficulties for years, and could not get 

 them answered ! He had asked how land-ice could get to England 

 from Scandinavia over the wide and deep channel which contours 

 the latter country, and the best reply that he got was that there was 

 a sort of ' clearing-house ' at the Dogger Bank, or that the channel 

 was post-Glacial ! He had asked how, if distributed by land-ice, 

 Shap boulders crossed the ice coming from the Cheviots and Scot- 

 land, and Arenig boulders crossed those from Criffel and the Lake 

 District — and the only answers given ignored the physical properties 

 of ice. He was personally acquainted with most of those transported 

 masses to which Mr. Lamplugh had referred, but could not accept his 

 interpretation of them, and deemed it unscientific, either to ignore 

 difficulties which really existed, or to bow down to authority. With 

 arguments of that style he was familiar enough, but they were not 

 suited for use in the place where he was speaking. 



