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THE DRIFT OF HEREFORDSHIRE. 



A brief conversation on this subject was originated by Mr. Edmunds observing 

 that during the last twelve months he had, along with his friend Mr. T. T. Davies, 

 devoted some little attention to an examination of the nature of the Drift in the 

 neighbourhood of Hereford ; and he found it to consist of two beds. The upper, 

 or surface drift, is composed principally of fragments of the green and red beds 

 of the Old Red Sandstone, intermingled with quartz pebbles, all evidently water- 

 worn, and not of any great size. Below this bed, at an average depth of some 

 three or four feet — in some cases rather more— is an extensive deposit of larger 

 fragments. Among these he had found felspar, pure or in conjunction with 

 portions of trap and of rocks of aqueous origin ; with clayslate, Lydian stone, 

 greenstone, grey Cambrian rocks, and quartz boulders. 



The recent works in the excavation for the Railway station at the Above- 

 Eign, Hereford, had laid bare a very extensive deposit of this larger drift, which 

 had been used on the line as ballast or gravel. Upon the Ross and Gloucester 

 line, between Dinedor Court and Holme Lacy, the deep cutting had been driven 

 through another deposit of the same character, the fragments of which had been 

 used upon that Une also as gravel. He had not observed any drift of a similar 

 character beyond the limits of the valley of the Wye. 



Along the Lugg the drift is Old Red, mixed with Silurian rocks ; he had 

 seen, for instance, in the possession of their fellow-member, Mr. Ballard, a good 

 speciment of chain-coral, much water worn, which had been taken from the bed 

 of the Lugg. Along the Monnow, he had noticed the drift to be chiefly fragments 

 of Old Red, with the quartz pebbles imiversal in the district. In the Wye, on the 

 contrary, the pebbles were fragments of various rocks represented in the lower 

 drift-bed, only much smaller and more water-worn, mingled with a portion of the 

 surface-drift. He wished to know whether the experience of other members of 

 the Club, in regard to the same or other districts of the county, corroborated his 

 own. 



The Rev. T. T. Lewis remarked that the subject of the Drift was one of very 

 great interest to geologists, and one upon which all the^observation possible might 

 with advantage be brought to bear. Sir Roderick Murchison had investigated it 

 very carefully, and is still pursuing his investigations. The explanation of the 

 phenomena involved a great many considerations. The distances to which 

 fragments have been transported by water from the nearest beds to which they 

 could have belonged are very great. For instance he had received a fossil of the 

 Upper Ludlow rocks, the Gryphaea incurva, from his friend, Mr. Lingwood, which 

 he imderstood to have been picked out of the river-bed near Ross. If the fact 

 could be substantiated it would be very interesting as an illustration. 



Mr. Lingwood said the fragment had been brought to him by a man who told 

 him that he picked it out of the river, and he knew no reason to doubt the veracity 

 of the man. 



