266 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 191 1 



The fact that there is no evidence of a comparatively 

 recent submergence of the Cotteswolds deep enough to reach 

 the level of some of the gravels is conclusive against a marine 

 origin. The deposition of the small gravel in Glacial lakes, 

 held up by local ice against the slopes upon which many of 

 them rest at considerable elevations above the valleys, or the 

 existence of a sufficient thickness of foreign ice to hold up 

 lakes to the same height, is improbable. 



As evidence of the work of land-ice, the Jurassic gravels 

 of the Cotteswolds are of little value : some of them may be 

 remnants of ancient deposits due to local snow and ice — even 

 of Glacial age — the reduction in size of the smaller fragments 

 having, perhaps, been effected by long exposure to the action 

 of acidulated waters. There is nothing in their arrangement 

 or composition to permit of reference to that or any other 

 particular epoch, except, perhaps, the examples that can be 

 traced to recent river-action or are interstratified with recent 

 alluvial deposits. A greater antiquity than that of the Glacial 

 epoch cannot be claimed for any of the gravels lying on or 

 near the western slopes of the hills, a position which many of 

 them occupy, for it is obvious that even a slight recession of 

 the escarpment would have completely obliterated all traces 

 of deposits of that age. If they are of Glacial age the causes 

 were purely local since they contain no admixture of Drift 

 pebbles or flints. Under the conditions of an invasion by one 

 of the great ice-sheets or of icebergs floating on marine waters, 

 the gravels must have received some addition of Drift material. 



III. — Mammalian Remains and Traces of Early Man 

 No mammahan remains assignable to the Glacial Epoch 

 have been found on the higher portions of the Cotteswolds ; 

 but probably their absence is due to non-preservation. A 

 human skeleton was found in the cutting at the northern end 

 of the Mickleton Tunnel in blue clay at a depth of 9 ft. 6ins. 

 from the surface under loamy clay and drift pebbles.' It 

 may have been covered by a landsHp in the Lias Clay. 



Remains of Bos (short-horned), Equus, Cervus (2 spp.), 

 Sus and Cams vulpes have been found in a superficial deposit 



I Gavey, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. ix., p. 26. 



