93 



LINCOLNSHIRE COAST BOULDERS. 



F. M. BURTON, F.L.S., F.G.S., 



/ / ighfiel d, Ga in sbo ro ugh , Lin col n sh ire. 



Mr. Harker, in his further note on this subject, which appears 

 in this month's number of 'The Naturalist,' begins by remarking: 

 ' It appears from Mr. Burton's communication in the November 

 number of "The Naturalist" that he and Mr. Wheeler still 

 reject the idea that boulders have been transported coastwise 

 across the Humber mouth.' For my part I certainly do, and 

 I thought I had given good and sufficient reasons for so doing-. 

 Anyway I can assure Mr. Harker that if he, or any one, could 

 bring forward proofs (and it is those who assert the fact that 

 are bound to prove it) of the passage across the Humber current 

 of erratics from the Yorkshire coast, I should at once, so far, 

 admit it, because all I desire, and seek for, is ' light and truth ' 

 in connection with the matter. I say 'so far,' because, if such 

 proofs could be given, they would not, and could not, do away 

 with the fact that, all along the Lincolnshire coast, erratics 

 occur in their natural bed — 'the Hessle and Purple clays' — 

 which is ample for the supply of all those that are found there. 



Mr. Harker then, speaking of Spurn Point as a temporary 

 resting place for the boulders coming down the Yorkshire coast, 

 says : ' What becomes of them ultimately ? ' and adds, alluding: 

 to the stones at Donna Nook, ' Mr. Reid's explanation, which 

 I quoted in my former note, seems to be the only possible 

 deduction from the facts.' Why, I would ask, is this so? Why 

 should not these boulders be scattered over the bed of the 

 ocean, as 1 have no doubt they are? 



As to the Donna Nook boulders, I have already suggested 

 what appears to me to be the only natural and reasonable 

 explanation about them. They came from the wearing away of 

 a vast tract of boulder clay which must once have covered the 

 entire coast area, and of which the cliff at Cleethorpes is the 

 only remaining fragment. 



Mr. Harker next raises the question as to where the Lincoln- 

 shire coast boulders come from, and, while admitting that 

 boulders similar to those in Yorkshire occur embedded in the 

 clays of that coast, he asks me to show that such clays are 

 found in places where they are exposed to marine erosion. 

 Now I think 1 might, with confidence, have left the point to be 



1900 March 2. 



