ON THE GLACIAL DRIFT OE EURNESS, LANCASHIRE. 



209 



thing at all like concisely showing the very imperfect state of our 

 present knowledge of the past history of organic life on our globe. 



ON THE GLACIAL DRIFT OF FURNESS, 

 LANCASHIRE. 



By Miss E. Hodgson. 



The following sketch of the glacial deposits of Furness is not pre- 

 tended to be complete ; it is, in fact, nothing but a sketch : neither 

 can it presume to be free from errors. The marine drift, especially, 

 has not received all the attention it demands, but will, I hope, with 

 the clays and peats of Furness, form a subject for a future memoir. 

 The deposits in the section are referred doubtfully to their periods. 



Striated Bock Surfaces. — The district of Furness ; its south-eastern 

 part, however, does not perhaps present so many of those remark- 

 able records of the glacial period, the striated rock-surfaces, as are to 

 be met with in more mountainous districts. The rocks, especially 

 the Carboniferous Limestone and Permian formations, either lie in a 

 great measure hidden under a thick covering of deposits, or, as in the 

 hills of the Upper Silurian strata, are of such a soft decomposing na- 

 ture, that they retain very little primitive facing. 



Occasionally, however, striations may be found. A little way in 

 shore, west from the estuary of the Crake, at the head of Morecambe 

 Bay, a rock-surface recently exposed by the removal of the overlying 

 material, and now quarried away, showed a series of parallel shallow 

 groovings from an inch to an inch and a half apart; the intervening 

 spaces plane and smoothed, and having very fine striae. The striae 

 and grooving had a direction from E. to W., or perhaps a little N.E. 

 to S.W. The rock presented an extraordinary and beautiful appear- 

 ance, with no signs of fracture, but on attempting to break off a 

 specimen, it was found to be literally crushed to pieces as if it had 

 been an egg-shell : so that no specimen exhibiting more than one 

 groove and smooth space could possibly be obtained. 



South of this, and still not far from shore, but with a hill of more 

 than 300 feet elevation lying between, striae are found taking a S.W. 

 by S. direction. The same occurs very distinctly on other spots near. 

 Further west, on Ben Crag, a hill of nearly 500 feet elevation, the 

 same N.E. by N. and S.W. by S. striation is observed, protected by 

 the grassy sod. 



It is found again with a very little variation on the Carboniferous 

 Limestone, where it underlies the Boulder-clay on the shore between 

 Bardsea and Aldingham. Some exposed beds of the limestone, 

 levelled off and polished, have it very persistently, in fine parallel 

 lines, now nearly worn out by the sea. 



This direction of striae corresponds with the general trend of the 

 hills of Furness, as "well as with the line of the centre of Morecambe 

 Bay. But even where this is not the case, where the strike of the 



VOL. VII. 2 E 



