94 



similiarity of the deposits at Porlock and Holly Hazle is very 

 marked. The presence of sea-mtid with Scrohicularia, which 

 is present at Porlock, being clearly traceable to its estuarine 

 conditions. The exact geological age of the Holly Hazle 

 deposit, Mr. Lucy does not attempt to fix, but suggests that 

 the fine clay at the base of the peat is a portion of the 

 '' houlder clay," which may at one time have covered, and in 

 some places, perhaps, have filled up our low valleys, and which 

 the tidal action of the Severn has helped to remove. 



Mr. Lt7cy wound up a very able paper by an endeavour to 

 establish the following position. That there was a time when 

 the whole of the land in that part of the Severn valley as seen 

 at Holly Hazle, in the hard beds of the " Old Eed " Marl, and 

 in the hard Lias beds at Gloucester and beyond Tewkesbury, 

 was eroded, and this, if not caused by the force which brought 

 the "boulder clay" into the district, was at all events followed 

 by it. That the beginning of the peat-bed occurred when the 

 climate began to ameliorate, as is evident from the presence of 

 the oak, which will not flourish in cold climates. In Norway 

 the extreme limit of growth is said to be 63° latitude. That a 

 vast forest-growth must have been going on for ages to accu- 

 mulate such a mass of peat ; that it occun-ed when the elevation 

 of the land was far higher than at present; and that what is now 

 the estuary of the Severn was then a dense forest. That after- 

 wards a subsidence of the land set in, which covered up the 

 whole of the forest; that we see probably only a portion of the 

 silt which was left, which, in its turn, was covered with a 



sprinkling of drift. 



Mr. Lucy's paper was followed by one by Mr. G. Playne, 

 describing recent calcareous deposits in the Cotteswolds, 

 illustrated by an interesting series of specimens, shewing the 

 effects of infiltration and incrustation. 



After the conclusion of these papers, many of the members 

 went to see portions of the foundations of the old Eastgate of 

 the city, with the adjoining walls, which had been discovered 

 in making excavations in King Street for the printing premises 



