An examination of the boulders associated with the shells showed that the whole suite of Galloway and Cumbrian erratics such as belong to the Irish Sea Glacier were present in great abundance.
Sands and gravels with northern erratics and shells.
At Clun, in Shropshire, a train of erratics (see map) has been traced back to its source to the westward.
A few erratics have been found at low levels at various points on the southern coasts, usually not above the reach of the waves.
Along the whole coast are scattered erratics derived from Galloway and the places lying in the paths of the glaciers.
To test the matter, an excavation was made at a point selected on Frankley Hill, and a genuine boulder-clay was found, containing erratics of the same type as those found upon the surface.
The Upper Boulder Clay consists of a compact mass of clay with erratics scattered through it; but the erratics are neither so abundant nor so confusedly pressed together as in the lower bed.
How far the dispersion of erratics over the Midlands may be referred to the ice sheet of some geologists, or to the icebergs of the Archipelago period in the history of Great Britain, must, at present, be regarded as an open question.
The absence of erratics from the boulder clay in which the grooved basaltic blocks are embedded is evidence of local ice action at Rowley Hill.
The peculiar distribution of the Midland erraticsis noteworthy.
In the clays and sands cut through by the Halesowen Railway only a few erratics (felsites) were found; but on the summit of the section they are abundant and of large size (e.
Many of the erratics are angular, and some (especially the slates) are finely striated.
The Midland erratics have undoubtedly travelled from three distinct regions, viz.
And when are we to have a "stand-up fight" on the erratics of the Alps?
The erratics here have the character of those observed farther south.
As these were the most northern erratics and glaciated surfaces reported in the southern hemisphere, the facts there were very interesting to him.
The eastern slope is more broken, and while the rounded knolls are quite as distinct and characteristic, the erratics are more loosely scattered over the surface.
There are erratics some two or three hundred feet above this great moraine, showing that the glacier must have been more than five hundred feet thick when it left this accumulation of loose materials at such a height.
In the gravel of this drift with erratics are a few littoral shells of living species, indicating an ancient coast-line.
They are often strangely contorted, and envelop huge masses or erratics of chalk with layers of vertical flint.
Rock similar in kind to theseerratics occurs about twenty miles distant in the Alps.
Subsequently, there must have been great cold when the Selsea erratics were drifted into their present position, and this cold doubtless coincided in time with a low temperature farther north.
The Upsala erratics may belong to nearly the same era as these.
Although the course taken by the Irish erratics in general is such that their transportation seems to have been due to floating ice or coast-ice, yet some granite blocks have travelled from south to north, as recorded by Sir R.
Erratics of Scandinavian origin occur chiefly in the lower portions of the till.
The erratics of North America are sometimes angular, but most of them have been rounded either by friction or decomposition.
The general absence of erratics in the warmer parts of the equatorial regions of Asia, Africa, and America, confirms the same views.
At its fulness, the great ice mass lay almost a mile in depth over New England, as attested by the scratched and polished rock surfaces and deposited erratics in the White Mountains.
And since both northern and eastern erratics are found associated in the same drift-deposit, it seems to him "impossible to explain the intercrossing by land-ice or glaciers.
Thus the intercrossings of the Criffel and Cumberland erratics described by Mr. Mackintosh receive a ready explanation by the land-ice theory.
But in the same neighbourhood are found many erratics of Alpine origin which have been carried from north-east to south-west, or at right angles to the course followed by the local erratics.
The erratics occur up to a certain boundary-line, where they are concentrated in enormous numbers, and south of which they do not appear.
Now, on the contrary, those eastern erratics are scattered over the very districts where I should have expected to find them.
Mr. Horne has no doubt that the Irish erratics were brought to the Isle of Man by land-ice.
Falsan and Chantre, and their colleagues, thus demonstrate that "intercrossings" of erratics of the most pronounced character have been brought about solely by the action of glaciers.
The erratics which occur in certain Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits are admitted by most geologists to have been ice-borne.
In the Eocene of Switzerland, erratics have been found, some angular and some rounded.
If cones and mounds of gravel and great erratics like those that sprinkle so wide an area in Northern America and Northern Europe had occurred, they would hardly have failed to arrest the attention of explorers.
In the remote, barren grounds of North America, we are told by various travelers who have visited those regions, "sand-hills and erratics appear to be as common as in the countries farther south.
It was precisely during the age when a warm climate prevailed in Spitzbergen and North Greenland that these erratics were dropped down on the plains of Italy!
Many very fine erratics are dotted about on the surface near Grananes.
The journey was most interesting; we crossed vast moraines, where enormous erratics were dotted about on the surface, before we reached the Jokulvisl.
It was instructive to find that the erraticswere coated with a film of manganese oxide derived from the sea-water.
The glacier shaft was dug to a depth of twenty-four feet, and several erratics were met with embedded in the ice.
A collection of erratics was brought up by the deep-sea trawl in the course of dredgings in Antarctic waters.
There were signs of previous glaciation in the form of erratics and many examples of polishing and grooving.
We have, therefore, in this agreement, a strong evidence in favour of the view that both the phenomena of local mountain erratics in Europe, and of northern erratics in Europe and America, have probably been produced by the same cause.
If it were otherwise, why are there no systems of erratics with an east and west bearing, or in the main direction of the most extensive currents flowing at present over the surface of our globe?
Glacial Theory of the Erratics and Drift of the New and Old Worlds.
Moreover, there is no ground, at present, to doubt the simultaneous dispersion of the erratics over Northern Europe and Northern America.
I ask, again, why the erratics are circumscribed within the northern limits of the temperate zone, if their transportation is owing to the action of water currents?
But there is no such thing to be observed over the whole extent of the North American continent, nor over Northern Europe and Asia, as far as the northern erratics extend.
It was stated that in Russia the erratics diminished generally in size in proportion as they are traced farther from their source.
The erratics have come partly from the mountains of Cumberland, and partly from those of Scotland.
We need not be surprised to find them reappear on our eastern coast, between the Tweed and the Thames, regions not half so remote from parts of Norway as are many Russian erratics from the sources whence they came.
In some cases erratics of ten or more tons' weight have been left in such remarkably balanced positions on bedrock that a child can cause one of them to swing back and forth slightly.
Erratics have very commonly been carried a few miles from their parent ledges, while more rarely they have traveled even hundreds of miles.
More localities for shells were visited, erratics were examined, and pilots were questioned closely "about the agency of ice, in which they believe.
A boulder-strewn soil of glacial origin with one of the large erratics on the right similar to those which early attracted attention to the drift.
The Intercrossing of Erraticsin Glacial Deposits,” Scottish Naturalist, vol.
Note on the Occurrence of Erratics at Higher Levels than the Rock-masses from which they have been derived,” Trans.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "erratics" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
