72 



My attention was at first confined to the Gravels of our 

 immediate neighbourhood, and originally the map illustrating 

 my researches was only one foui-th of its present size ; but after 

 visiting the Moreton and Stow Districts and reading the very 

 valuable paper in the Reliquiae Biluviance, by Dr. Btjckland, 

 descriptive of that region, I became convinced that to render 

 the subject at all intelligible, it would be necessary to increase 

 the area, and my great difl&culty has since been to know where 

 to stop. 



The object I have endeavoured steadily to keep in view is, first 

 to give you, in as concise a form as possible, the Geological 

 position and physical characters of the various beds of drift 

 Gravel, in the hope that the members will be led to investigate 

 them, and that ere long they may be as well known as any of 

 our Oolite sectioiis in the Cotteswolds. Secondly, to explain 

 what appears to me to be their origin and age. Should it be 

 found that I have done my work fairly, there ought to be little 

 difference of opinion iipon the first; but the second is one 

 upon which unanimity can hardly be expected. 



It has always appeared to me, that in writing a paper upon 

 a complicated and difiicult subject like the present, it is very 

 desirable, even at the risk of taxing the patience of those who 

 are thoroughly conversant with it, to place before the not so 

 well informed, what may be regarded as the generally received 

 opinion of some of the best authorities. Even amongst those 

 who are non-geologists, there is a wide and general interest felt 

 in the subject, as it is in the drift deposits that we find the 

 first records of man and his worI;s i.pon the globe ; and any 

 information therefore which tends to lead us to reconsider our 

 views, with regard to his chronology, cannot fail to be of the 

 highest importance. 



Upon an examination of a geological table we shall find at the 

 very top the words, Recent, Post Pliocene, and Newer Pliocene, 

 and it is in the two latter that the drifts which form the subject 

 of this paper, and which include the Glacial Epoch, mainly occur. 



Mr. Page adopting the views of Mr. T. F. Jamie son, 

 arranges the Glacial period into three stages, — the first, when the 



