PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



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in the special instance of coast-ice. These sandstone boulders are much 

 more likely to be Old Red Sandstone or millstone grit. That they have 

 been brought from the vale of the Tees and across the Pennine chain in 

 their course to a higher level, is extremely improbable. 



Mr. Binney said Mr. Whi taker had brought some of the veritable red 

 sandstone, which he had no hesitation in saying was millstone grit or rough 

 rock, from the neighbourhood. 



Mr. Whitaker said the ravine from which these stones have come he 

 knew well. They are making a reservoir there, and the water-manager, 

 at his request, brought down these boulders from the same heap that Mr. 

 Wilkinson had examined. The course of the stream, from its source in the 

 hills to the place at which the boulders were met with, runs over the out- 

 crop of the millstone grit, many seams of which cannot be distinguished 

 from these so-called New Red Sandstone boulders, but which, in his opi- 

 nion, are nothing more than pieces of grit torn off and rounded by the force 

 of the torrent ; and so long as we have rocks near home that will account 

 for these boulders, we are not warranted in going hundreds of miles away 

 for them. If it be New Red Sandstone, it can only be found in any 

 quantity as boulders, but it exists in any quantity in situ in the lower coal- 

 measures. If he understood Mr. Wilkinson rightly, he speaks of the 

 boulder clay having been deposited previous to the upheaval of the Pen- 

 nine chain ; but, from his own observations, he had arrived at an opposite 

 conclusion, namely, that the land had much the same configuration then 

 as now, with the exception of standing at a much lower level with regard 

 to the sea. If, as stated by Mr. Wilkinson, the drift had been deposited 

 upon a level plain, and the upheavals had taken place afterwards, the hills 

 would have taken the boulder clay up with them, and we should have 

 found it upon the tops of the highest of them. But such is not the fact. 

 The drift can be traced to a height of from 1300 to 1400 feet, but no higher. 

 Still, there is evidence that the sea of that time reached a height sufficient 

 to submerge hills of from 1500 to 1600 feet. On Bouls worth, for instance, 

 1 1 ion; are large numbers of enormous boulders, some of which, right on the 

 crest of the hill, some 1600 feet high, are furrowed and grooved almost like 

 gridirons, as if the icebergs had been stranded in floating across, and had 

 grated upon the rocks strewn upon the bottom of the sea. But on Pendle 

 we have an entirely different appearance. On the top we have no drift, 

 nor any of the very large boulders that we find on Boulsworth. Growing 

 on Pendle (1800 feet) is the semi-arctic plant Ritbas Chamccmonis, which, 

 according to the theory of the late lamented Professor Forbes, may be a 

 relic of the glacial flora. The same plant may be seen on Whernside and 

 Ingleborough, but he had not been able to meet with any traces of it on 

 the lower ranges of hills, such as Bouldsworth or ILameldon ; hence it is 

 not improbable that hills of from 1500 to 1600 feet in height were sub- 

 merged, but bills that approached to, or reached over 2000 feet, stood out 

 as low islands in the cold and dreary sea of the Drift period. 



Mr. Binney said the Hint which Mr. Whitaker has now exhibited is a 

 flint having certain chippings; and it may be taken as a moderately good 

 example of an ancient arrow-head. It is of the same character, though 

 rudely formed, as those which have, without question, been made artifi- 

 cially. It was found in the valley-gravel beyond Harrow ford, and it is the 

 very place where Mr. Prestwich and himself have been looking for them 

 for some time. He should not like to say positively that this has been a 

 portion of an arrow-head; but it is more like one than any other llint he 

 had as yet seen in these beds. It is a chalk Hint, and such are very 

 rarely, if ever, found in these valleys. He bhoughl they would be found 

 in the gravel near Manchester. 



