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Ordinary Meeting, December 14th, 1880. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., President, in the Chair. 
“ Boulder Stones as Grave Stones ” 
The President said that in the numerous excavations 
made in the drift deposits large boulder stones are often 
met with and cause a good deal of trouble to the workmen. 
They are glad to get quit of them somehow or other. Blast- 
ing them with gunpowder or dynamite or burying them 
near to the place where they have been found have been 
generally employed. Latterly it has become the fashion to 
remove them to public parks in order to preserve them ; and 
fine specimens may be seen in those places at Manchester, 
Salford, Oldham, and Macclesfield, where they are not only 
preserved, but exposed to public attention. He (the Presi- 
dent), when visiting A shton-under-Ly ne the other day, 
observed another use to which boulder stones had been 
applied. There in the churchyard on the Manchester Road 
a greenstone boulder, instead of being buried as was for- 
merly the custom, is now used as a tombstone over the 
grave of a son of an alderman of that borough. This is the 
first instance where he had seen a boulder stone used for 
such a purpose, and it is one where they may not only be 
preserved, but exhibited to the public. Over the grave of 
the late Mr. Locke the Railway Engineer, in Kensal Green 
Cemetery, is a block of red granite, but although plain, he 
thinks it is not a boulder like the one at Ashton-under- 
Lyne. 
“The Land Subsidence at Northwich,” by Thomas 
Ward, Esq. 
Having been an eye witness of the great subsidence of 
land at Northwich on December 6th, I will endeavour 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Soc. — Vol. XX.— No. 5— Session 1880-81, 
