288 
YORKSHIRE DRIFTS. 
is one of the delightful recollections of my life that as we approached 
the castle of the Duke of Argyll, standing in a valley not unlike 
some of the Swiss valleys, I said to Buckland, ' Here we shall find 
our first traces of glaciers'; and as the stage entered the valley we 
actually drove over an ancient terminal moraine, which spanned the 
opening of the valley."* Everywhere as he expected, he found proofs 
of the truth of his glacial theories ; and on a subsequent visit to the 
seat of the Earl of Enniskillen in Ireland, for the purpose of studying 
the magnificent collection of fossil fishes in the Museum at Florence 
Court, the same phenomena of lateral and terminal moraines, roclte.'^ 
moutonnees, polished surfaces and scratches, were observed in that 
country. It is needless to particularize the progress the glacial theory 
made. Lyell speedily accepted it, and all the chief geologists came 
round to the same view. Yorkshire is replete with evidence of glacial 
action, and the importance of the subject was speedily recognized by 
this Society, and papers were presented on the subject. 
In 1841, at a meeting of this Society, held at Huddersfield, 
Mr. J. Travis Clay, of Rastrick, read a paper on the Yorkshire 
Drifts and Gravels, in which he to a large extent accepted the 
the theory of Professor Phillips. He divided the clays and gravels 
existing in Yorkshire and Lancashire into three groups; 1st, the 
unstratified mass of clay, interspersed with boulders and pebbles 
derived from distant rocks, which covers the Vale of York, and 
conceals many parts of the regular strata in the east of Yorkshire and 
also in Lancashire ; 2nd, the .stratified deposits of sand and gravel 
which are frequently superimposed upon the first division ; and 3rd, 
the hillocks and terraces of unstratified matter which occur in many 
of the northern valleys. The first division includes the diluvium of 
Holderness, and a deposit which Mr. Clay considered precisely similar, 
covering the whole area of the Vale of York, extending from the Tees 
and Durham to the boundary of the county. He considered that the 
large boulders, frequently weighing more than a ton, could not be 
brought by the agency of water from distant localities, frequently 
over hills of considerable height ; and that, consequently, there must 
* Louis Agassiz, his life and correspondence, by Eliz. A. Ag-assiz, 1885, 
vol. i., p. 307. 
