On the Diluvial and Gravel Beds of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire

Abstract

The study of transported detritus is now exciting the attention it deserves, as a method of explaining some of the last changes which have taken place on the earth’s surface. Capt. Portlock (President of the Dublin Geological Society) says, “In every sand hillock or elevated gravel bank, there is a subject of study, leading to the inquiry how such deposits have been formed; whether with a steady or slow action of the sea at higher levels; by the force of submarine currents; or any other form of glacial or aqueous agency. In Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire there are at least three distinct extensive tracts of gravel, of different geological ages, and derived from different transporting currents. There are also some very extensive tracts of surface over which no traces of general gravel beds, or of general transporting currents, can be found; and these latter, (where no gravel beds are found,) require some investigation from the Geologist as to the cause of the absence of transported material. I shall, therefore, shortly describe the three extensive tracts of gravel which cover great parts of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, and then offer some explanation of the absence of these deposits in the Yorkshire and Derbyshire Coal Fields. Commencing with the north parts of Yorkshire is one of the largest and best known dispersions of boulders and gravel which Great Britain presents. These fragments, which consist of rocks now existing “ in situ ,” in Cumberland, are dispersed, first on the west side of the chain of hills ...