526 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 25, 
of the water, this would presume a mass eight times this size below 
the surface; and assuming this comparatively small size for those 
bergs, we should have them extending to the depth of 400 feet be- 
neath the water. The floating of such a mass of ice is altogether 
incompatible with the idea that these blocks were carried oyer 
Stainmoor, when the sea was about 1500 feet higher than at 
present. 
If we assume a greater height of sea-level, and one sufficient to 
float such icebergs, then we place the whole granitic area of Wast- 
dale Crag considerably below the water-level, andin such a position 
as to render it unavailable to furnish materials for transport. 
Another objection to the iceberg theory is furnished by the mode 
of occurrence of the blocks themselves. Their insulated and super- 
ficial position is] strongly antagonistic to this idea. If we suppose 
icebergs, bearing mineral matter, to have been stranded in the areas 
where the Wastdale-Crag blocks are found, the melting of these, 
either wholly or partially, would have left some of the earthy mud 
and sand so abundant among ice-transported materials; and in 
such mud and sand the blocks would have been seen. Nothing of 
this kind, however, occurs ; for the blocks alone seem to have been 
the materials transported. 
There yet remains to be considered another agent which could 
have transported the blocks of Wastdale Crag: this is coast-ice ; 
and this agent seems less liable to objection than either the action 
of glaciers or the operation of icebergs. 
Such an agent is now in action in high latitudes ; and the effects 
which result therefrom, both in Europe and America, have been well 
described by Sir Charles Lyell *. 
{f we suppose the sea-level, at the period of the transportation of 
the Wastdale-Crag granite blocks, to have been at the height pre- 
viously assumed, namely, 1500 feet higher than at present, although 
a large portion of the granite area, as it is now seen, would have 
been beneath the sea-surface, there would still remain sufficient 
above and near the surface to have afforded blocks. 
These blocks, when frozen in ice-sheets, would be in a position 
easily capable of transport, when the sheets became broken up. 
Blocks imbedded in and lying upon such ice-rafts would require no 
great depth of water for their transport. 
These ice-rafts would be dependent upon winds and currents 
for their direction: their course west was impossible, as the land 
lay on that side. There remained, however, a north, south, and east 
course for them to take. 
With reference to the former, the nortkern course, there is evi- 
dence which supports the inference that in this direction their 
motion would be materially interfered with by currents setting in 
from the north-west and north. The evidence of the existence of 
such currents during the period of the transportation of the Wast- 
dale-Crag blocks, is indicated by the occurrence of blocks of Criffel 
* Principles of Geology, 10th ed. vol. i. p. 383. 
