40 



the inferior oolite. If these beds are sought for on the north side 

 of Bath they will be found at a much higher level ; for instance, 

 the junction of the upper lias with the inferior oolite would be 

 about the level of Primrose Hill, Lansdown and Camden Crescents, 

 and at the Charlcombe Waterworks. This is only to be accounted 

 for by the presence of a fault which passes through the Bath basin, 

 by which the beds on the south side have been thrown down about 

 300 feet. The greatest depth in the hill sides above the inferior 

 oolite is occupied by the fullers' earth, which in this district is of 

 considerable thickness, the whole being capped by the great oolite, 

 which everywhere forms the table land surrounding the Bath basin. 

 Kesting, then, on the lower lias, and surrounded by the other 

 formations I have enumTrated, will be found the deposits to which 

 I shall next have to refer. 



The alluvial beds and post-pliocene gravels a.ve due to the 

 action of fresh water, and have been deposited in the valleys since 

 the time when the general physical configuration of the district 

 was the same as the present, and although I shall show instances 

 in which some of the derived materials have been brought from 

 considerable distances, in general they have been washed down 

 from the higher grounds or from the sides of the valleys upon 

 which the ancient streams, in much greater volume than those 

 which now follow their courses, have been operating. The area 

 within which these drifts are found, and to which my remarks will 

 be chiefly applied, is the low ground west of Bath — the Bath basin 

 properly so called — and the valleys immediately running out of it 

 to the east, including those of Bos, and that by way of Limpley 

 Stoke and Freshford to Bradford. 



It is not my intention to say more on any archaeological 

 questions than can be helped, but it is found that historic and 

 pre-historic times graduate so insensibly one into the other that 

 they can with difficulty be separated, and it is the aim both of the 

 archgeologist and the geologist to endeavour to ari-ive at the point 

 at which these sciences diverge. 



In passing backwards then from the present into the past it is 

 my object to oifer some remarks on the physical conditions and 

 the fauna of the Bath district during 



