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Eibstract of Proceedings. = 
1904. 
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GENERAL MEETINGS. 
Friday, January gth. Sir Samuel Wilks, Bt., M.D., F.R.S., 
President, in the Chair. 
Mr. F. W. Rudler, I.S.0., F.G.S., gave a lecture entitled ‘‘The 
Geology of London, with special reference to the Northern 
Heights.”’ The lecturer said that at any ancient centre of popu- 
lation, like the City of London, there is sure to be found near the 
surface a quantity of artificial rubbish, representing the remains 
of old roads and buildings, and known as “‘ made ground.” — These 
historical relics, which have been accumulating in the City for 
some two thousand years, rest upon those deposits which geologists 
recognize as alluvium and drift. The alluvium under Westminster, 
~Lambeth, the Isle of Dogs, and elsewhere along the river, is mostly 
old inundation mud of the Thames, and contains, in addition to 
historical relics, many remains of prehistoric art, going back to 
the Bronze and Neolithic periods. Older than these are the gravels 
and brick-earths which spread over a wide area in the Thames 
Valley, and lie under the City, Islington, and all the older parts 
of London and its suburbs. These deposits have yielded many 
relics of the older stone-using age known as the Paleolithic period, 
represented principally by flint implements occurring in association 
with remains of mammals, many of which are either locally or 
absolutely extinct. The central figure in this Pleistocene fauna 
was the mammoth, or great hairy elephant, the bones and teeth 
of which are not infrequently found in London and its neighbour- 
hood. The late Dr. Henry Hicks obtained in 1884 some interesting 
relies of this creature in Endsleigh Gardens, Euston Square. Some 
of the mammalian bones, like those of the musk-ox, suggest a very - 
cold climate during the part of the Pleistocene age, and this refrig- 
eration culminated in that episode of geological history known as 
the Glacial period. Evidence of the action of ice is afforded by 
the boulder-clay and glacial sands and gravels at Finchley, Muswell- 
hill, and Barnet, but the great Northern “ drift’ does not come 
further southwards. The Northern Heights of Hampstead, 
Highgate, and Harrow are capped by outliers of the Lower Bagshot 
sands. The main mass of these beds covers a large area in Surrey 
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