1870. ] DE RANCE—GLACIAL PHENOMENA. 649 
but the commonest granite in the clay is of a greyish colour, and 
does not perhaps come from the Lake-district. In the Upper Boul- 
der-clay of Blackpool, Messrs. Binney and Darbishire and myself 
have found Liassic fossils (one of which Mr. Darbishire, F.G.S., 
informed me he had also found in the so-called “Bridlington Crag”). 
Chalk-flints and Permian breccia also occur in the Middle Drift of 
Red Scar. The base of the “ Upper Boulder-clay” is generally a 
bed of “marl,” of tolerably hard consistence ; stones are not com- 
mon in it, but all are much glaciated, being highly polished and in- 
tensely scratched ; minute fragments of shell are common; and the 
clay has a deep chocolate-colour. Higher up stones are commoner, 
less glaciated, and the clay of the usual red colour. At the surface 
it is often yellow, with whitish seams, extremely stiff, and the sur- 
face of the ground extremely wet, and, when not drained, covered 
with rushes. Much of this land has never been broken by the 
plough ; and its extreme flatness in the district between Preston 
and Lancaster, has caused the name of the “Fylde” to be given 
long ago to this tract. 
The character of the Upper Boulder-clay in Cheshire is very 
similar to that in Lancashire. It is of reddish colour, and con- 
tains Lake-district and other erratics. South of Hoylake, I ob- 
served one chalk-flint, making, with one I found at Blackpool and 
another at Rufford, three for more than 300 square miles of country, 
during nearly two years spent continuously in the field. In the 
grounds of Leasowe Castle there are three large boulders, weighing 
several tons, which have been extracted from the Boulder-clay in 
the neighbourhood, which is no doubt the upper clay, as Mr. Mor- 
ton, F.G.S., in boring through the clay, came to a bed of quick- 
sand resting on a lower clay, which sand no doubt represents the 
Middle Drift. The Glacial deposits here are covered with a series of 
Postglacial beds, hereafter described, and rest upon a rock-surface 
formed of Keuper marls, which have, I believe, been bored into to 
a considerable depth. The surface of the marls is much below the 
lowest low-water mark. 
Esker Drift.—Here and there, on the western slopes of the Lan- 
eashire moorlands, at elevations of from 200 to 400 feet above the 
mean level of the sea, are found isolated patches or mounds of rub- 
bly gravel, resembling, to some extent, artificial barrows or tumuli ; 
one of them, occurring to the east of Chorley, perhaps from this 
cause, is called “ Pickering Castle.” The constituent fragments are 
far more local than those found in the Middle Drift, which to a 
slight extent it resembles, and appear to have been mainly derived 
from the neighbouring escarpments. In some of these gravels a 
few erratic pebbles, chiefly granites, occur, which may possibly be 
derived from the denudation of the adjacent Boulder-beds. 
From the isolated and detached way in which these mounds of 
gravel occur, the absence of scratched stones, the rareness of erratic 
blocks, and the fact that they appear to le upon the surface of the 
Upper Boulder-clay, it appears probable that they are identical 
with the Kames of Scotland, which have been described by Mr. A. 
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