?6 
Notes and Comments. 
of East Lancashire.’ The area dealt with comprises the 
western slopes of the Pennines, from Boulsworth Hill to 
Blackstone Edge, and their westerly offshoot, the Rossendale 
highland, which separates the basin of the Ribble from that 
of the Irwell and Mersey. Three types of drift have been 
recognized, (i) Local drift, consisting of materials which can 
be found in situ in the neighbourhood, chiefly Coal Measures 
and Millstone Grit ; (2) Ribblesdale drift with Carboniferous 
Limestone, chert, and Silurian grit, as well as local material ; 
(3) North-western drift which, in addition to any or all of the 
above-mentioned constituents, contains igneous rocks from 
the Lake District and the South-west of Scotland. The 
distribution of the drift and the evidence of striated rock- 
surfaces suggest the invasion of this area by an ice-sheet 
which reached up to the Pennine watershed, and projected 
ice-lobes across it through the gaps at Widdop, Gorple, 
Cliviger. and Walsden. A small unglaciated region occurs 
a few miles south-west of Todmorden. 
DIRECTION OF ICE-MOVEMENT 
In the north-eastern portion of the area the general 
direction of ice-movement was from north to south ; in the 
west it was from north-north-west to south-south-east, but 
on the south of the Rossendale highland the direction of 
flow curved round towards the east-north-east, and ultimately, 
in the neighbourhood of Rochdale, towards the north. The 
local drift is believed to have been produced by the over- 
lapping of 200 feet or so of clean ice, which formed the upper 
portion of the ice-sheet, beyond the limits reached by the 
ice containing erratics. No evidence of local glaciation has 
been found. The limit of the north-western drift rises at the 
rate of about 4 feet per mile from Blackstone Edge towards 
the Irish Sea : therefore, when at its maximum, the ice- 
sheet was probably over 2000 feet above present sea-level 
in the middle of the Irish Sea in this latitude. Extensive 
systems of glacier-lakes and drainage-channels were produced 
on the retreat of the ice, and for some time the drainage on 
the west of the Pennines in the Ribble and Irwell basins 
escaped eastwards into the Yorkshire Calder. It is probable 
that the north-western ice arrived in this area later, and 
disappeared earlier, than the Ribblesdale ice. Some local 
fluctuations in the ice-sheet occurred, but there is no evidence 
for more than one Glacial Period. 
NORTH SEA FOR AMIN I FER A. 
Messrs. E. Heron-Alien and A. Earland have an interesting 
paper in No. 73 of The Journal of the Quekett Microscopical 
Club, ‘ On Some Foraminifera from the North Sea, Dredged 
by the Fisheries Cruiser ‘‘ Huxley.” ’ 133 species are enu- 
merated, and some of these are illustrated. One of the plates 
Naturalist,. 
