Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 | Page 4

to the rustic population, little accustomed to think of the dynamics of water, and totally ignorant of the deduction made in such circumstances from the specific gravity of any heavy mass carried by it. Geologists, who have looked into the great question of erratic blocks, are less apt to be startled by such phenomena.
Some of these gentlemen will, I suspect, find the transport of blocks at Holmfirth less remarkable than they could have desired. It is well known that, while most of them ascribe the travelling of boulders to the working of ice in former times, one or two persist in thinking that water may have done it all. The present president of the Geological Society has endeavoured to shew, by mathematical reasonings chiefly, that the blocks of Shap Fell granite, scattered to the south and east in Yorkshire, may have been carried there by a retreating wave, on the mountain being suddenly raised out of the sea. Now here is a moving flood, of greater force than any retreating wave could well be; and yet we see that it does not carry similar blocks a hundredth part of the way to which those masses of Shap Fell have been transported, even although their course was all downwards moreover--a different case from that of many of the Shap boulders, which are found to have breasted considerable heights before resting where they now are.
At length, after a toilsome walk along the rough surface of the débris, we reached the place whence this wonderful flood had burst. We found on each side of the valley a huge lump of the embankment remaining, while a vast gulf yawned between. This was somewhat different from what we expected; for we had seen it stated in the newspapers, that the whole was swept away. So far from this being the case, fully half of the entire mass remains, including portions of that central depression which has been spoken of. There is more importance in remarking this fact than may at first sight appear. In the investigation of the mysterious subject of the Parallel Roads of Glenroy, one theory has been extensively embraced--that they were produced by a lake, which has since burst its bounds and been discharged. It has been asked: Where was the dam that retained this lake? and should we not expect, if there was any such dam, that it could not be wholly swept away? Would not fragments of it be found at the sides of the valley--the breaking down of the centre being sufficient to allow the waters to pass out? When we look at the masses left on each side of the Bilberry embankment, we see the force and pertinence of these queries, and must admit that the lake theory is so far weakened. In the bottom of the breach, a tiny rill is now seen making its exit--the same stream which cumulatively took so formidable a shape a few months ago. For a mile up the valley, we see traces of the ground having been submerged. Immediately within the embankment, on the right side of the streamlet, is the empty tower or by-wash, that dismal monument of culpable negligence. We gazed on it with a strange feeling, thinking how easy it would have been to demolish two or three yards of it, so as to allow an innocuous outlet to the pent-up waters. When we had satisfied our curiosity, we commenced a toilsome march across the hills to a valley, in which there has lately been formed a series of embankments for the saving up of water for the supply of the inhabitants of Manchester. About six in the evening, we reached a public-house called the 'Solitary Shepherd,' where we had tea and a rest; after which, a short walk in the dusk of the evening brought us to a station of the Manchester and Sheffield Railway, by which we were speedily replaced in Manchester, thus accomplishing our very interesting excursion in about ten hours.
My final reflections on what we had seen were of a mixed order. Viewing the inundation as a calamity which might have been avoided by a simple and inexpensive precaution, one could not but feel that it stood up as a sore charge against human wisdom. That so huge a danger should have been treated so lightly; that men should have gone on squabbling about who should pay a mere trifle of money, when such large interests and so many lives were threatened by its non-expenditure, certainly presents our mercantile laissez-faire system in a most disagreeable light. But, then, view the other side. When once the calamity had taken place, and the idea of the consequent extensive suffering had got abroad amongst the public, thousands of pounds came pouring in for the relief of that