214 MISCELLANEA {continued). [1876. 



by rain water. In this clay, flints as long and thin as my arm 

 often stand perpendicularly up ; and I have been told by the 

 tank-diggers that it is their " natural position " ! I presume 

 that this position may safely be attributed to the differential 

 movement of parts of the red clay as it subsided very slowly 

 from the dissolution of the underlying chalk ; so that the 

 flints arrange themselves in the lines of least resistance. The 

 similar but less strongly marked arrangement of the stones in 

 the drift near Southampton makes me suspect that it also 

 must have slowly subsided ; and the notion has crossed my 

 mind that during the commencement and height of the glacial 

 period great beds of frozen snow accumulated over the south 

 of England, and that, during the summer, gravel and stones 

 were washed from the higher land over its surface, and 

 in superficial channels. The larger streams may have cut 

 right through the frozen snow, and deposited gravel in lines 

 at the bottom. But on each succeeding autumn, when the 

 running water failed, I imagine that the lines of drainage 

 would have been filled up by blown snow afterwards con- 

 gealed, and that, owing to great surface accumulations of snow, 

 it would be a mere chance whether the drainage, together with 

 gravel and sand, would follow the same lines during the next 

 summer. Thus, as I apprehend, alternate layers of frozen 

 snow and drift, in sheets and lines, would ultimately have 

 covered the country to a great thickness, with lines of drift 

 probably deposited in various directions at the bottom by 

 the larger streams. As the climate became warmer, the 

 lower beds of frozen snow would have melted with extreme 

 slowness, and the many irregular beds of interstratified drift 

 would have sunk down with equal slowness ; and during this 

 movement the elongated pebbles would have arranged them- 

 selves more or less vertically. The drift would also have been 

 deposited almost irrespective of the outline of the under- 

 lying land. When I viewed the country I could not per- 

 suade myself that any flood, however great, could have depo- 



