GEOLOGY. 249 



he believed to be graclual, he spoke of the middle drift, wlicn 

 larger masses of chalk were dropped amongst the sand and mud 

 in the deepening sea, thus producing contortions in the stratified 

 deposits. During the period of subsidence intermediate between 

 the deposition of the lower boulder clay and middle clays of Mr. 

 Wood, it was probable that a great amount of denudation took 

 place upon what was now the chalk district of Norfolk. This 

 denudation of the chalk during the period of the middle drift must 

 have been enormous, as shown by the finding of flint boulders in 

 the middle drift. 



Prof. Philips said there was a certain fauna below the whole of 

 the glacial deposits which contained a peculiar elephant, the 

 mastodon, and that above this the changes of animal life ap- 

 l^eared to be distinctly marked, even of terrestrial creatures. At 

 a late period the reindeer was introduced, and all were aware 

 that the great number of cervine quadrupeds of late years had 

 become to be recognized, so there was a distinction in the race of 

 ElephaSy of Bovidce, and of Cervidce. All these groups showed 

 that the portion of time has been a long one ; that there had been 

 produced in it a variety of forms not seen before ; that many ancient 

 forms had died out, so that they were able by the process to con- 

 nect the earliest period of the deposits, including the crag, with 

 all these. Although each stage had had its own peculiar animals 

 and peculiar points in histor}', that land and sea were traceable to 

 the present, with some variations. Those ancient animals had 

 their representatives now, and the whole course of geological time 

 from the crag to the present was only one group of deposits, one 

 group of circumstances, one great series of time. 



Mr. J. E. Taylor read a paper upon this subject, the general 

 conclusions of which were, that the whole of the marnmaliferous 

 bed above the chalk and beneath the crag, as described by Mr. 

 Fisher, was quite distinct from the true crag ; a few shells interlo- 

 cated having found their way when the land surface was lower so 

 as to form the shallow bottom of an estuary ; that the total alj- 

 sence of fresh water and land shells in the upper crag, and the 

 predominance of those usually found at a greater sea depth, indi- 

 cated that this bed was formed under more distinctly marked 

 marine conditions than the lower or fluvio-marine crag. The 

 paucity of shells in the former, and their immense abundance in 

 the latter, was another proof of their separate and distinc^con- 

 ditions. Meantime, the increasing cold was proved by the abun- 

 dance of northern shells in the upper beds, as compared with the 

 lower. In short, the upper crag was one more intermediate link 

 in the evidence of refrigeration, as proved by the coralline crag 

 upward, and the succeeding glacial series was only the result to 

 which a study of the various crags necessarily led the investigator. 



ON THE TERTIARY DEPOSITS OF VICTORIA. 



According to Mr. H. M. Jenkins in a paper presented to the 

 British Association in 1868, the most varied section of the marine 



