1873.] MACKINTOSH REMARKABLE BOULDERS. 355 



Cheshire. — I believe there is no county so remarkable for large 

 and far-travelled boulders as Cheshire. So far as I have been able 

 to understand, they are almost invariably found at the base of the 

 Lower Boulder-clay, or where the nearly bare or quite bare rock 

 comes to the surface — in the latter case suggesting that no clay had 

 ever been deposited, or that after its deposition it had been swept 

 away. I believe that nearly all of them were transported from the 

 Lake district and the south of Scotland before or at the commence- 

 ment of the Lower Boulder-clay period. On the sea-coast between 

 Dawpool and some distance to the S.E. of Parkgate they occur in 

 great numbers. I measured two, of felstone (one of them, I believe, 

 from Wastwater Screes), the diameters of which were 8x6x6 and 

 5x4x2 feet ; two of greenstone, 7x5x4 and 6x4x4 feet ; and 

 two of Criffell granite, 5x3x3 and 3x2x2 feet. 



Boulders in Clay near Frodsham. — A few weeks ago (October 

 1872), I was very fortunate in hearing of a new railway-cutting 

 near Frodsham. Though only just excavated, a rain-wash from a 

 thin and irregular covering of upper or brick-clay had so obscured a 

 great thickness of very hard lower clay interstratified with thin 

 layers of sand, that it required some time to make out the true 

 character and age of the deposits. The lower clay is evidently on 

 the same horizon with that at Dawpool *, and is equally fossiliferous. 

 In some places the underlying Triassic shale had been worked up 

 into the clay, and the latter contained several large angular blocks 

 of local sandstone. At the base of the Lower clay, and more or less 

 imbedded in the rubbly shale, there were four very large erratics, 

 all more or less rounded, and two of them polished and striated. 

 Two, consisting of Eskdale granite, were each about 4 J x 4 x 2| feet 

 in diameter ; and two, of Criffell granite, measured 3| x 3| x 1 and 

 3xl^xl|feet. 



Surface-boulders near Overton. — A few miles to the south of this 

 cutting, the east side of Overton hill and the adjacent flat ground are 

 covered with boulders, which, though on the surface, owing to the 

 absence of clay, are, I believe, of the same age as those above-de- 

 scribed. One of them (felstone), a little distance below the refresh- 

 ment-shed, measures 5| x 4 x 2 feet. Lower down there are many 

 granite-boulders, one of which measures 4x2x2 feet. 



Boidders of Delamere Forest. — The heights of Delamere forest 

 (among which Overton Hill may be included) would appear to have 

 been in the central part of the great current which transported 

 boulders from the JST.N/.'W". The boulders are generally found on 

 the flanks of the forest plateau, or in hollows between eminences. 



of hardening the gritty matter, and thus preventing its being swept away from 

 the surface of the rock ? This striated pavement, in wet weather, is now covered 

 with water. 



* Sec paper on the Dawpool section, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxviii. The 

 lower clay referred to in this paper is, I believe, a later deposit than the blue 

 clay of the North Welsh coast, Cumberland, &c. The latter is limited to the 

 mountains or their neighbourhood, is made up of very local material, and 

 nowhere contains far-travelled large boulders. 



