SOME NEW BOOKS. 



The Tradition of the Flood. 



On certain Phenomena belonging to the close of the last Geological 

 Period, and their bearing upon the Tradition of the Flood. By 

 Joseph Prestwich. D.C.L., F.R.S., F.G.S., etc. 8vo. Pp. xii.. 87. Macmillan 

 and Co., 1895. Price 2s. 6d. net. 



The author's life-long researches into the evidence of repeated 

 changes in the level of land and sea, their causes, results, and 

 relative order in succession, more particularly in the British Islands 

 and Western Europe, have proved to be of great value to his fellow- 

 geologists in elucidating the geological structure and history of the 

 regions concerned. They have also enlightened many amateurs and 

 other inquirers on collateral subjects, such as the local and general 

 supply of coal and water, the distribution of particular soils, and as 

 to special topographical features — for instance, gravel-terraces at 

 different levels. 



One geological feature among others has especially attracted his 

 attention and had his careful consideration to a great extent, namely, 

 a widespread superficial coating of loose material, consisting of 

 broken rock-matter, but forming neither common gravel and loam, 

 nor soil and humus. This was recognised, to some extent, and 

 called "head" by De la Beche and Godwin-Austen. Prestwich 

 defines it as a special class of " drift," which he calls " rubble-drift." 

 It occurs on hillsides as fragmentary stones mixed with broken bones; 

 also in some clefts and hollows ; on coasts it covers old ("raised") 

 beaches, and on some plains and plateaux it forms part of the wide- 

 spread loamy beds known abroad as the " Lehm," or " Loess," but, 

 like the foregoing, commingled with land-shells and the bones of 

 land animals. These bones may be broken, but have not been worn 

 by transport in rivers, or by glaciers or coast ice, nor have the}^ been 

 gnawed by beasts of prey. Hence the author long ago deduced the 

 conclusion that they must have been dispersed from local centres by 

 water pouring off rising areas of ground after having been submerged 

 by the subsidence of land under water. During this earlier change 

 of level the creatures sought higher and higher levels for safety, and, 

 dying there, their remains were brought down by the retreating 

 waters during the emergence of the land, whether by slow, sudden, or 

 intermittent elevations. The loose ruins of the rocky structure of the 

 tops and slopes of the high places, whether frittered away by frost or 

 by alternate heat and cold, and left, perhaps, for ages before the 

 submergence, came down at the same time, often breaking and 

 crushing the larger bones where the diluvial rush or local precipitation 

 into fissures was greatest. Large areas have been swept bare, slopes, 

 hollows, and clefts retaining some of the debris or detritus. 



This hypothesis of a widespread and relatively short submer- 

 gence, followed by early re-elevation, seems to the author to satisfy all 



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