SILSOE AND LEIGHTON BUZZARD 133 



and had probably at some remote period determined the posi- 

 tion of the village and the meeting-point of the three roads. 

 Being a kind of rock quite different from any found in that 

 part of England, it was probably associated with some legend 

 in early time, but it is in all probability a relic of the ice-age, 

 and was brought by the glacier or ice-sheet that at one time 

 extended over all midland England as far as the Thames 

 valley. But at this time not a single British geologist knew 

 anything about a glacial epoch, it being two years later, in 

 1840, when Louis Agassiz showed Dr. Buckland such striking 

 indications of ice-action in Scotland as to convince him of the 

 reality of such a development of glaciers in our own country 

 at a very recent period. 



When we had completed our field-work, we moved into 

 Leighton Buzzard, and lodged in the house of a tin-and- 

 copper smith in the middle of the town, where we completed 

 the mapping and other work of the survey. Our landlord 

 was a little active man with black hair and eyes and dark 

 complexion. He told us that whenever his trade was slack 

 he could make small tin mugs at a penny each and earn a fair 

 living, as there .was an inexhaustible demand for them. He 

 was a very intelligent man, and he made the same objection 

 to the success of the railway that had been made by many 

 mechanics and engineers before him. This was, that the 

 hold of the engine on the rails would not be sufficient to draw 

 heavy trucks or carriages — that, in fact, the wheels would 

 whizz round instead of going on, as they do sometimes now 

 when starting a heavy train on greasy rails. He and others 

 did not allow sufficiently for the weight of modern engines, 

 which gives such pressure on the wheels as to produce ample 

 friction or adhesion between iron and iron, though apparently 

 smooth and slippery. This question used to be discussed in 

 the old Mechanics' Magazine, and it was again and again 

 declared that, however powerful engines were made, they 

 would be unable to draw very heavy loads on account of the 

 want of adhesion ; and all kinds of suggestions were made to 

 remedy this supposed difficulty, such as sprinkling sand in 



