9 6 



Burton: Lincolnshire Coast Boulders. 



large specimens I have seen were in a disused pit at Theddle- 

 thorpe St. Helens, close to the sea bank but on its landward side, 

 one of which is alluded to in the paper I have before referred to. 



These, I think, are all the points which call for a reply in 

 Mr. Harker's last note ; and surely the evidence I have given 

 is conclusive as to the Lincolnshire boulders being derived from 

 the Lincolnshire coast, and from nowhere else. 



Let us for a moment, however, take the opposite view and 

 see what the belief in it involves : — 



1. That, by some means or other, boulders from the Yorkshire 



coast are able to pass through the strong current of the 

 Humber, and, in addition, to resist the rush of the return- 

 ing tide ; a tide so strong that it is able to stay the force 

 of the Ouse and Trent; and, in the case of the latter 

 river, to push the tidal wave, or Aegre, up to a distance 

 of 30 miles, and more, from its mouth. 



2. That stones, smoothed and rounded by their passage down 



the Yorkshire coast, on leaving it, appear on the Lincoln- 

 shire side as angular as when they first left their beds. 

 All this I am unable to believe, and I would ask any who can 

 do so, to go, as I have done, first to one coast and then to the 

 other, and see if they can find anything to justify their belief. 



The Rev. Canon Rowe, Principal of the Training College, 

 Lincoln, who has been good enough to examine such of the 

 rocks I lately collected at Sutton as had not been previously 

 identified, in his report divides them into groups of Syenites, 

 Syenitic Granites, Hornblende Gneisses, and Porphyritic Fel- 

 spars. One of the Syenites, he says, ' seems to be rather of 

 a Scotch type ; it also resembles the Buttermere Syenite ; ' and, 

 speaking generally, he says : ' These rocks are of a very different 

 character from the drift rocks found in Essex, which are chiefly 

 Dolerites and Basalts, Syenitic rocks being very rarely found. 

 They appear to me rather to resemble Scotch Rocks than any 

 others with which I am familiar.' 



While preparing this paper I received a letter from Mr. 

 Wheeler, in which he says : — 



• Since I last wrote to you I have been over several miles 

 of the coast in other parts of England, with the view of 

 examining the action of littoral drift under different con- 

 ditions, but have seen nothing to lead me to alter the 

 opinion I have formed that you are quite right in your 

 theory that the stones on the south shore of the Humber 

 are from local sources and not from Holderness.' 



Naturalist, 



3 MAR. 1900 



