180 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



of Lancashire and Cheshire — are held to be of marine ori- 

 gin, and this is indeed a vital necessity to the submergence 

 theory ; for, if these are not marine deposits, neither are the 

 other shelly deposits ; but these boulder-clays are abso- 

 lutely indistinguishable from those lying within the hill- 

 centres, and, as it passes belief that such deposits could be 

 of diverse origin and yet possess an identical structure and 

 arrangement, then we should have a right to demand that 

 these clays should have enclosed shells and should still con- 

 tain them, but they do not. 



" I may here mention that I am informed by Mr. W. 

 Shone, F. G. S. — and he was good enough to permit me to 

 quote the statement — that the boulder-clay of Cheshire and 

 the shelly boulder-clay of Caithness are ' as like as two 

 peas.' The importance of this comparison lies in the fact 

 that, since Croll's classical description, all observers have 

 agreed that it was the product of land-ice which moved in 

 upon the land out of the Dornoch Firth. It was pointed 

 out then, as since has been done for England, that it was 

 only where the direction of ice-movement was from the 

 seaward that any shells occur in the boulder-clay. 



" The Dispersion of Erratics of Shdp Granite, — So 

 great a significance attaches to the peculiar distribution 

 of this remarkable rock, that I may add a few details here 

 which could not be conveniently introduced elsewhere. 



" This granite occupies an area which lies just to the 

 northward of the water-shed between the basins of the 

 Lime and the Eden, and its extreme elevation is 1,656 feet. 

 Boulders occur in large numbers as far to the northward 

 as Cross Fells, while, as already described, they pass over 

 Stainmoor and are dispersed in great numbers along the 

 route taken by the great Stainmoor branch of the Sol- 

 way Glacier. But a considerable number of the boulders 

 also found their way to the southward, and a well-marked 

 trail can be followed down into Morecambe Bay ; and at 

 Hest Bank, to the north of Lancaster, the boulder-clav 



