396 W. SHONE ON THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS OP WEST CHESHIKE. 



dergone extensive erosion by the agency of a great sheet of ice (he 

 did not mean an ice-cap) coming from the north. He was led to 

 the conclusion that such had been the case by the direction of the 

 glacial scratches in the north of England, which are all approxi- 

 mately N. and S., or more or less towards the mountains of Cumber- 

 land. This glaciation was followed by a submergence, during which 

 the Boulder- clays were formed. 



Prof. Hughes had been over the ground with Mr. Shone, and tes- 

 tified to the accuracy of his work and the great value of his paper. 

 One inference he was inclined to question, viz. the age of the upper 

 part of the series, which Prof. Hughes considered entirely Post- 

 glacial. He explained all the scratched stones and some of the 

 northern shells in the so-called Upper Boulder-clay of N. Wales and 

 the borders by their having been derived from older glacial beds. 



Mr. Belt considered the paper clear, concise, and to the point. 

 Mr. Tiddeman and others had shown that the ice was piled up to 

 the height of 2000 feet above the sea in Lancashire ; Prof. Ramsay 

 that it had overridden Anglesey from the north. It could not have 

 moved down nearly parallel to the coast unless the Irish Sea was 

 filled with ice. This ice had left behind it stones from Cumberland 

 and Scotland ; along with these and other transported rocks were 

 broken and worn shells, all of which, it was admitted, had not lived 

 where they were now found, but had been brought from some other 

 place. He contended that the same agent that had brought the 

 foreign rocks had brought also the broken shells and mixed together 

 southern and northern species and deep- and shallow- water forms. 

 He said that in America the ice had not only carried up crystalline 

 rocks thousands of feet above their parent bed, but also soft shales ; 

 and if it could do this, it could also carry up sea-shells. He referred 

 to the opinion of Prof. Edward Eorbes, who had carefully examined 

 the shells in the northern drift, with the object of determining 

 whether they indicated an ancient sea-coast or an ancient sea-bot- 

 tom, and had come to the conclusion that they did not, but had been 

 transported to their present position from lower levels. 



Dr. J. Gwyn Jeefkeys inquired as to the height above the sea- 

 level at which these fossiliferons beds were found, and remarked 

 that our notions of deep-sea forms had changed since the time of 

 Edward Forbes. 



The Authok, in reply to Prof. Ramsay, remarked that the 

 question raised by him as to whether the rock-striations on low 

 grounds were produced by an ice-sheet or not was a very large one. 

 The softness of the rock in Cheshire would seem to account for no 

 striations being found near Chester; but no doubt such markings 

 are older than the oldest deposits referred to in the paper. In reply 

 to Prof. Hughes, he said that the derivation of the Upper Boulder- 

 clay from the Lower Boulder-clay was barely possible ; for, as a rule, 

 beneath the Upper Clay there are usually sands and gravels, and the 

 Scandinavian shells must have passed through the Middle Sands and 

 Gravels in order to get from the Lower into the Upper Boulder-clay. 

 The Upper Clay no doubt indicated an ebbing out of Glacial con- 



