57 



This question of gravels and drifts, which has of late, owing to the 

 researches of Mr. Prestwicii and others, attracted a large share of 

 attention, is amongst the most interesting and the most intricate of 

 the problems which remain for solution : as it is probable that 

 diluvial action may have disturbed and re-arranged the same gravels 

 more than once. How otherwise can we account for the presence in 

 the same deposit of minerals derived from the most opposite sources, 

 and which must owe their transport to forces acting in directions 

 entirely diverse and often over spaces immensely distant ? 



After dinner, which was served at the Feathers Inn, an account was 

 communicated by the Rev. F. Smithe, of certain " Bryozoa" beds 

 underlying the "Fish-bed" at the base of the lower Carboniferous 

 Shales in the Avon Section, near Clifton. These beds were described 

 as being 12 feet in thickness, and as absolutely teeming throughout 

 with minute organisms of the Class Bryozoa. These, freed by hydro- 

 chloric acid, form 70 per cent, of the rock. It appears that this bed 

 has been overlooked by the Ordnance Surveyors, and allocated to the 

 Devonian System, whereas it is highly crystalline limestone of the 

 Carboniferous Series, and reposes on the Upper Red Conglomerates. 

 Some of these organisms from the Bryozoa bed have been since 

 described and figured in the " Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 

 Science." 



Wednesday, \1th July.— The Club met at Corse, having accepted 

 an invitation from our friend and colleague, the Rev. W. S. Symonds, 

 to partake of luncheon at his residence, at Pendock. The party 

 proceeded, under his guidance, to examine the interesting undulations 

 in the " Red Marl" above the village of Eldersfield, visiting by the 

 way the wooded knoll of Berth Hill, from which the Lias has just 

 been denuded, and the flat plateau of " Gadbury," where the traces 

 of a rude and early encampment have given rise to the belief that the 

 hill owes its flatness to the levelling hands of the rude engineers who 

 first fortified its summit. But the rolled pebbles of undisturbed 

 drift on the surface seem rather to point to the sea as the true leveller, 

 in those remote epochs of the world's history when the broad vales 

 of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire formed part of an ocean which 

 stretched from the Mersey to the Severn : and the rounded hills, 

 capped with gravel, were shoals in that wide waste of waters. 



A large party, including representatives from most of the neigh- 

 bouring Field Clubs, with a goodly proportion of the fair sex, were 

 handsomely entertained at luncheon by Mr. and Mrs. Symonds ; 

 after which the Rev. Mr. Timins, Rector of West Mailing, Kent, 

 gave an interesting address on the Mineralogical Chemistry of the 



