Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 | Page 4

seen about a quarter of a mile below the
place whence it evidently has been torn. These are prodigies 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