VOL. XVII. (2) NORTH AND MID COTTESWOLDS 265 



Prof. Hull regarded them as vestiges of a true sea-beach, 

 but found no traces of marine shells.' Prestwich regarded 

 them as having been probably deposited during a marine sub- 

 mergence.^ Lucy held that they were due to the slipping 

 of frozen snow and land-ice, carrying down the limestone 

 detritus at a time when the climate had become comparatively 

 mild ;^ while Edwin Witch ell regarded them as " the waste of 

 the rocks disintegrated by frost, and probably washed down 

 by heavy rains and melting snow in spring to the places of 

 deposit." In some observations on the " Gravel Period " in 

 the later stages of the Glacial Epoch, the same writer says it 

 is probable that " the intense frost caused the surface of the 

 rocks to split off into fragments, which became pulverized, 

 and most of the angular gravel was deposited in the way 

 described.'* 



Mr H. B. Woodward mentions some of the sections 

 described, and calls attention to the " more remarkable ac- 

 cumulations of rubble," among which is that to the north- 

 west of Break Heart Hill, near Dursley, the most southerly 

 exposure of the gravel that has yet been recorded.^ 



The Oolitic gravels of the Cotteswolds have also been 

 described by Murchison,^ Strickland^ and James Buckman.^ 



I have not been able to detect any difference among the 

 various gravels described by these authors other than the size 

 and the more or less waterworn condition of the fragments. 

 The only organisms other than Jurassic fossils found in the 

 gravels in question are a few fragments of land-shells in the 

 upper part of a bed on Cleeve Hill. 



The uniform fineness that is the principal characteristic 

 of the variety of gravel under discussion could not, I think, 

 have been maintained under exposure to alternate frost and 

 thaw or the action of torrents and movements of the soil, or 

 marine submergence. 



I " The Geology of the Country around Cheltenham " (1857), pp. 87-8. Mem. Geol. Surv. ; 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xi., pp. 487-8. 2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xlviii., pp. 314- 



333' 3 Proc. Cottesw. Nat. F.C., vol. v., p. 113. 



4 " Geology of Stroud," pp. 94-5 and 98. For other descriptions of the Cotteswold Jurassic 

 Gravels, see Proc. Cottesw. Nat. F.C, vol. iv., pp. 56-9, and vol. vi., pp. 98, 146-53. 



5 Geol. Mag., Nov., 1897, pp. 487-8. 6 " The Geology of Cheltenham " (Augmented and 

 Revised by Buckman and Strickland), 1845, pp. 60-2 ; " The Silurian System," pp. 527-8. 



7 " Memoirs of H. E. Strickland," by Jardine, pp. 92, 103, 142. 



8 " The Ancient Straits of Malvern." 



