398 Geological Society. 



feet above the level of the sea. Besides marine sliells of existing 

 species, he has ascertained that some of the lower beds of this for- 

 mation contain bones of the extinct Irish elk, by which we learn 

 that this quadruped, although belonging to a comparatively modern 

 period, and found in peat-mosses, had nevertheless begun to inhabit 

 this part of the world at a period anterior to some of the last changes 

 in the position of land and sea, changes which are proved by the 

 upraised shelly beds just alluded to. Now Professor Nilsson of Lund 

 in Sweden, although ignorant of these facts, had remarked to me that 

 some great alteration must have occurred in the shape and extent 

 of dry land and sea in Great Britain and the surrounding parts sub- 

 sequently to the time when the Irish elk existed, otherwise so many 

 entire skeletons of so large an herbivorous quadruped as the 

 Cervus megaceros^ would not have been found in so small an island 

 as the Isle of Man. That island may at no remote geological pe- 

 riod have been united to the main land, and may have since been 

 separated from it by subsidences, on a scale equal to the elevations 

 of which there is such clear evidence in Ireland and elsewhere. 



Changes in the relative level of land and water, in the estuary of the 

 Clyde, are indicated by facts described in another paper by Mr. Smith 

 of Jordan Hill, near Glasgow. Superficial deposits, in which a great 

 number of marine shells of recent species are imbedded, are found on 

 the banks of the Clyde below Glasgow, at the height of SO or 40 feet 

 above the sea. I had myself an opportunity of verifying during the 

 last summer several of these observations of Mr. Smith, and found 

 equally clear proofs that the Island of Arran had participated in the 

 upward movement, so that a circle of inland cliffs may be traced all 

 round that island, between the base of which and the present high- 

 water mark a raised beach occurs, and in some places beds of marine 

 marls, formed of recent shells, as in the bay of Lamlash. Mr. Smith 

 has also traced sea-worn terraces on each side of the Clyde below 

 Dumbarton and between the Cloch Lighthouse and Largs. 



We are indebted to Sir Philip Egerton for some new details re- 

 specting the shelly gravel of Cheshire, of which he had previously 

 treated; and to Mr. Murchison and Professor Sedgwick for a joint 

 j)aper on " a raised beach in Barnstaple Bay on the north-west coast 

 of Devonshire." This beach puts on for several miles where it is 

 best exposed, the form of a horizontal under terrace resting upon an 

 indented and irregular surface of the older formations. It presents 

 a cliff towards the sea, in which beds of calcareous grit, sandstone, 

 and shingle are seen perfectly stratified. The bottom of the de- 

 posit is chiefly composed of indurated shingles resting on the ledges 

 of the older rocks, and filling up their inequalities. Through the 

 whole clifF, but especially in the indurated grits, shells are abun- 

 dantly dispersed, identical in species with those now living on the 

 coast, and well preserved, though sometimes waterworn. 



The authors point out that these beds cannot have been formed by 

 accumulations of blown sand. They demonstrate an elevation of 

 the coast during the modern period; and there are phacnomenaboth 

 on the north and south coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, which 



