85 
with true glacial beds in many places besides the immediate 
neighbourhood. At Ingleton I found two beds of this 
laminated clay resting between beds of ordinary till, with well 
scratched boulders, and there were well preserved glacial 
boulders in the laminated clay itself The conclusion that 
these beds in the cave might be the result of glacial condi- 
tions, which imply the running of much muddy water in 
alternating periods of flow and rest was prima facie not im- 
probable, but seemed to explain the difficulties. The great 
thickness of pure mud, the numberless alternations, implying 
alternating conditions, the singular contrast in physical con- 
ditions to the deposits above and below, and the absence of 
life, all pointed to a state of things such as we know existed 
during the great ice age * I communicated this opinion in 
a Eeport to the Cave Committee in February, 1871, and the 
further explorations have singularly confirmed it. f We have 
since found glaciated boulders in the laminated clay itself, 
and still later the important discovery of a great accumulation 
of boulders and glacial till at the cave mouth, resting on the 
edges of the lower cave-earth, goes far to establish the 
matter. 
The Glacial Beds at the Cave Mouth. — As the explorations 
went on it was found necessary to remove a large breadth of 
the screes or talus at the entrance to a lower depth than pre- 
viously, and most important results accrued. From year to 
* For fuller arguments vide Geol. Mag., vol. x,, p. 11. 
t This conclusion is disputed by Prof. Dawkins (Cave Hunting, p. 122) 
on the ground of— 1st, laminated clay occurring in crevices in the Lower 
Cave-Earth, beneath the main mass. On this point vide supra p. 84.* 2ndly. 
his discovery of laminated clay (one-tenth of an inch thick, as he informs 
me), in pools, in the Ingleborough Cave. This seems to me beside the question, 
which is not " Can laminated clay be deposited under other than glacial con- 
ditions ?" (to which I would give a decided affirmative), but " What were the 
prevailing conditions when so large a mass of laminated clay was deposited in 
the Victoria Cave, contrasting so strongly with the great thickness of beds 
above and below it ? " 
