1870. | . HABRKNESS—WASTDALE-CRAG BLOCKS. 527 
granite over the Cumberland plain and in the valley of the Eden. 
The southern current is not so clearly indicated; still the absence of 
Wastdale-Crag blocks from the yalley of the Lune to the south of 
Wastdale Crag supports, to some extent, the supposition of its exist- 
ence*, 
The combined influence of a northern and a southern current with 
land to the westward would give rise to a current having nearly an 
eastern course; and a current having such a direction would carry 
ice-sheets loaded with blocks over Stainmoor. 
The existence of water at or near such a high level, at or imme- 
diately after the period of the transportation of Wastdale-Crag 
blocks, is shown by the occurrence of Eskars, which have been 
already alluded to as making their appearance near the east base of 
Wastdale Crag. 
These are seen in some spots at a height of about 1100 feet above 
the present sea-level; they exhibit a great amount of false-bed- 
ding, and they are seen scattered over a moor in positions where 
no riyer-action could have operated to produce them. 
Professor Phillips, in a communication to the British Association 
(Report, 1864), expresses an opinion that the distribution of the 
Wastdale-Crag blocks “cannot haye been performed by ice-flota- 
tion in an ocean, however elevated, if the present relative elevations 
of the country were the same as now.” Judging from the age of 
the valleys in Westmoreland it would, however, appear that this 
relative change of level, if it has taken place at all, could not have 
been of such a character as to give rise to the present general out- 
line of the country. Some slight relative changes may have taken 
place on one side or other of the great Permian fault, but no such 
change as could have materially affected the general contour of the 
district east of Wastdale Crag. 
Kyen had such changes of level taken place on opposite sides of 
the Pennine fault, there would. still be the difficulties which arise 
when we consider the surface-outline of Westmoreland, over which 
the blocks have travelled, to be overcome. 
Reference has been made to the Boulder-clay of Westmoreland ; 
and in this Boulder-clay it has been shown that no Wastdale-Crag 
blocks occur. As the Pleistocene formation, in some parts of 
England and Ireland, exhibits three well-marked periods,—namely, 
first and lowest, Boulder-clays, resting on sands and gravels which 
possess an Arctic fauna; second, gravels, sands, and marls marked 
by a fauna of a less Arctic character ; and third, another Boulder- 
clay which, in the valley of the Clyde and elsewhere, is capped by 
beds containing shells also of Arctic types,—the inquiry naturally 
occurs, T'o which of these series are we to assign the Boulder-clays 
of Westmoreland upon which Wastdale-Crag blocks are found P 
Observations induce the conclusion that:of these members of the 
Pleistocene group the two former, namely, the lower Boulder-clays, 
* Blocks of Wastdale-Crag granite are seen on the western side of the Lune, 
about Selside, six miles due south of Wastdale Crag. 
