536 GREAT ACCUMULATIONS OF GRANITE BOWLDERS IN INLAND TRACTS. 



dimensions (several tons in weight) may well excite surprise, seeing that they there 

 occupy one of the most central districts of England. Here the farmer is incessantly 

 labouring to clear the soil, either by burying them or by piling them up into walls or 

 hedge banks, and his toil, like that of Sisyphus, seems interminable ; for in many spots 

 new " crops " of them, as it were, appear, as fast as the surface is relieved from its 

 sterilizing burthen 1 . So great, indeed, is their abundance, that an observer, unac- 

 quainted with the region, would feel persuaded he was approaching the foot of some 

 vast granitic range ; and yet the source of their origin is one hundred and fifty miles 

 distant ! From this great central depot, they are traceable into the estuary of the 

 Severn in Worcestershire, till they appear as solitary bowlders, and finally are en- 

 tirely replaced by gravel, in which small fragments of the same granite are intermixed 

 with local detritus. (See p. 532.) 



In this range, the blocks, as well as the shells and smaller gravel of which we have 

 spoken, are found at all elevations from 50 to 400 and 500 feet above the sea. Their 

 course has no relation whatever to the existing drainage of the country, for as they 

 occur on the northern slope of the water-shed which separates the estuaries of the 

 Mersey and the Severn, they have followed a direction quite opposed to the present 

 line of drainage. Nor have the transverse, or east and west ridges and valleys, which 

 form the present surface, been any obstacle to their progress from north to south, 

 since the largest accumulations occur to the south of the crest which divides these 

 estuaries. 



Let us, therefore, endeavour to seek for a rational explanation of the method by 

 which they may have been transported into such positions. In so doing we may first 

 advert to the different theories already propounded to explain a phenomenon, which 

 being very general in other parts of Europe, has given rise to much speculation. The 

 earliest theory, usually called the " diluvial," supposed, that these blocks had been 

 forced into their present positions by one or more tremendous inundations, passing 

 over a subsoil which had been dry land. This theory was supported by able writers, 

 who connected it with the account of the deluge recorded in the Scriptures, and thus 

 gave it a great ascendency over the human mind. It is now, however, abandoned by 

 almost every geologist. Independent of the physical improbability (may we say im- 

 possibility ?) of the rise of waves sufficiently high and strong to propel these huge 

 blocks across mountains and valleys, such an hypothesis has been shown to be inap- 

 plicable to large regions of the earth which have never been affected by any general 

 rush of waters since their present configuration was assumed 2 . But, besides this, we 

 have demonstrated, that in the region under review, not only are there no evidences 



» I am indebted to Mr. Cotton of Claverly for directing my attention to many of these huge blocks in the 

 environs of Abbotsford Hill. Seeing their great abundance in parts of the tract, and the difficulty of eradica- 

 ting them, some of the farmers absolutely believe that they grow in the soil. 



2 Such as Siluria; Auvergne in France, &c. (See note, p. 511.) 



