NOTES ON THE GLACIAL PHENOMENA OF PART OF WHARFEDALE, 
NEAR GRASSINGTON, FROM MY MS. WRITTEN IN 1878. 
BY J. R. DAKYNS, M.A. (FORMERLY OF H.M. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 
{Read February 21th, 1902.) 
With the exception of blocks of Silurian rock, which are 
found between Chapel House and Burnsall, the drift in tlie 
basins of the rivers Wharfe and Nidd, among the Carboniferous 
rocks, contains only Carboniferous boulders which may have 
come from the rocks cropping out of the surface in those basins. 
There are no foreigners. We know that the drift material has 
travelled southward and eastward, because boulders of Car- 
boniferous limestone are found to the south and east of any 
outcrop of that formation ; thus boulders of limestone have 
been carried southward across the Aire to the higher part of 
the Worth Valley, and such iiave also travelled eastward down 
the Aire valley towards Leeds. 
There are very few Glacial striae to be seen near Grassington, 
because there are not many hard compact rocks fitted for re- 
taining striae. Limestone is hard and compact enough, but it 
disappears so rapidly at the surface under the action of rain- 
water, and becomes so fretted into fantastic shapes, that it does 
not long retain superficial markings, except when protected 
from the weather by a covering of clay. One very good instance 
of this sort occurs between Grassington and Kettlewell, at a 
spot on the east side of the valley, where under boulder clay 
I found limestone beautifully grooved. The grooves trended 
along the hillside bounding the valley of the Wharfe. The 
only other scratches I got were on Millstone Grit on the southern 
part of Hebden Moor, where I found scratches trending N.W. 
and S.E., and close by some doubtful ones pointing E.N.E. 
