42 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1910 



The snow, pushed down by the increasing fall above, 

 plucked up and carried forward fragments of Inferior-Oolite 

 and Liassic limestones, which it brought up against the deposits 

 of yellow quartzose sand that were being introduced into 

 this portion of the Vale. This appears probable, because the 

 gravel of Inferior-Oolite and Liassic limestones usually fringes 

 the deposits of quartzose sand on the escarpment side, while 

 its entirely local origin is evidenced by the essentially local 

 suite of derived fossils which it contains. 



The fossils found in the gravel-pit at Charlton Kings could 

 all have been derived from the hills immediately to the east. 

 The smaller Jurassic fragments, however, that are found com- 

 posing the lenticular and intermittent layers in the quartzose 

 sands, may well have been derived from more northern 

 sources — from the more northern portions of the Cotteswold 

 Hills, including the Bredon outlier. 



Snow lingered longest, in waning Glacial times, in the 

 combs of the Cotteswolds that faced north, north-east and east, 

 probably in the form of snow-banks. 



Even now in winter snow lies longest on such chilly, sun- 

 less slopes as those of Charlton Common. During Glacial times 

 the down-sliding snow would drive and carry forward much 

 limestone-material. The penultimate products of the waning, 

 hanging snow-bank may well be the elongate banks of gravel 

 above referred to, and the ultimate products of the snow-bank 

 the belt of granular gravel. If the rocks had been different in 

 structure and dip, and the hills higher, there would probably 

 have been a more cwm-like hollow with the equivalent to this 

 gravel-belt impounding a small cwm-lake. 



And so in closing Glacial times we may picture the snow 

 accumulated in the great amphitheatre-like hollow of Charlton 

 Common, and in those of its lesser neighbours, gradually work- 

 ing down, steepening the Inferior-Oolite scarps at the head of 

 the combs, and sharpening the upper portions of the dividing 

 and once rounded intervening spurs into incipient aretes. 



Another noticeable comb that opens northwards, and has 

 oversteepened head-slopes, is that to the north of Wistley Hill, 

 on the south side of the western entrance to the Dowdeswell 

 wind-gap. 



