12 
SHEPPARD : INTER-GLACIAL GRAVELS OF HOLDERNESS. 
Mr. Lamplugh seems to be of opinion" that the Teesclale Glacier 
skirted along our coast during a retreat of the Norse ice (the front 
of this ice-sheet diverting the Teesdale Glacier's course southwards). 
The opinion is also expressed,! however, that having regard to the 
enormous time the Norwegian glacier would take to reach England, 
the Irish Sea would have had ample time to have been choked with 
ice, thus diverting the ice from the Lake District down the Valley of 
the Tees, which would carry with it the Shap granite and other 
rocks before the foreigner reached us. 
Regarding peculiar beds of carbonaceous matter seen in the 
sand Mr. Lamplugh wrote that perhaps the sea was not entirely 
excluded from the old bay, and in some places laved the edge of the 
glacier . . . just as the sea re-sorts the morainic and fresh- 
water gravels on the flanks of the Muir and other glaciers in 
Alaska.''^ 
The current-bedding in the gravels would easily be accounted 
for by the water flowing from the ice-front ; or the sea washing 
against them (as already mentioned), and the boulder clay being both 
underll and above the gravels seems to indicate that the gravels have 
been over-ridden, perhaps more than once, by the oscillating ice- 
front. The thin beds of boulder clay mixed in the gravel, together 
with the kneaded-out aspect of the hills, also favour this view. 
The fact that this is a terminal moraine does not indicate that 
it represents the limit of the Norse ice, nor is it of necessity the only 
moraine of this glacier, as we have good reason to believe that, like 
the Vale of York glacier, this Norwegian ice-sheet has left us more 
than one moraine, as monuments of its former existence. 
The contour of the Holderness Hills is very striking and totally 
different from anything else in the country. Here and there are 
ellipsoidal hills, generally about fifty feet in height, occasionally 
quite detached, and once or twice, as at Burstwick, two hills appear 
to have been kneaded into one, although this appearance may be due 
* Lamplugh, Drifts of Flambro' Head. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. , 
vol. xlvii., p. 424, (1891). 
t Kendall, Glaciation of Yorkshire. Proc. Yorksh. Geol. and Polyt. Soc. , 
vol. xii. , p. 315. 
X Drifts of Flambro' Head. Page 422. 
II Indicated by borings. 
