Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
"To resume the delineation of the limits of the great Irish Sea Glacier:
From the Vale of Clwyd the boundary runs along the range of hills
parallel to the estuary of the Dee at an altitude of about nine hundred
feet. As it is traced to the southeast it gradually rises, until at
Frondeg, a few miles to the northward of the embouchure of the Yale of
Llangollen, it is at a height of 1,450 feet above sea-level. Thence it
falls to 1,150 feet at Gloppa, three miles to the westward of Oswestry,
and this is the most southerly point to which it has been definitely
traced on the Welsh border, though scattered boulders of northern rocks
are known to occur at Church Stretton.
"Along the line from the Vale of Clwyd to Oswestry the boundary is
marked by a very striking series of moraine-mounds. They occur on the
extreme summits of lofty hills in a country generally almost driftless,
and their appearance is so unusual that one--Moel-y-crio--at least
has been mistaken for an artificial tumulus. The limitation of the
dispersal of northern erratics by these mounds is very clear and
sharp; and Mackintosh, in describing those at Frondeg, remarked that,
while no northern rocks extended to the westward of them, so no Welsh
erratics could be found to cross the line to the eastward. There are
Welsh erratics in the low grounds of Cheshire and Shropshire, but their
distribution is sporadic, and will be explained in a subsequent section.
"Having thus followed around the edges of this glacier, it remains to
describe its termination. It is clear that the ice must have forced its
way over the low water-shed between the respective basins of the Dee and
the Severn. So soon as this ridge (less than 500 feet above the sea)
is crossed, we find the deposits laid down by the glacier change their
character, and sands and gravels attain a great predominance.[BO] Near
Bridgenorth, and, at other places, hills composed of such materials
attain an altitude of 200 feet. From Shrewsbury _via_ Burton, and thence,
in a semicircular sweep, through Bridgenorth and Enville, there is an
immense concentration of boulders and pebbles, such as to justify the
designation of a terminal moraine. To the southward, down the valley
of the Severn, existing information points to the occurrence merely of
such scattered pebbles as might have been carried down by floods. In the
district lying outside this moraine there is a most interesting series of
glacial deposits and of boulders of an entirely different character. (See
map.)
[Footnote BO: Mackintosh, Q. J. G. S.]
"From the neighbourhood of Lichfield, through some of the suburbs of
Birmingham, and over Frankley Hill and the Lickey Hills to Bromsgrove,
there is a great accumulation of Welsh erratics, from the neighbourhood,
probably, of Arenig Mawr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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