270 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB igii 



It is probable that much of the gravel that lies between 

 Wychwood Forest and the River Avon was introduced by 

 Tertiary streams that have been beheaded by the development 

 of the Severn tributaries. The pebbles of quartz and quartzite 

 and the flints on the higher portions of the Cotteswold Hills 

 were probably introduced by Neolithic man, mainly for 

 use as sling stones. Many of the unworn flints in the 

 neighbourhood of Aston Magna and Moreton-in-the-Marsh 

 are quite fresh ; a condition that suggests derivation from the 

 parent rock in some other manner than transport from a 

 distance by land ice. Red chalk is naturally associated with 

 hard white chalk and grey flints in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, 

 from whence it is contended by some authorities that both 

 chalk and flints have been derived. If this is the case it is 

 curious that they do not appear to have been accompanied in 

 their journey to the Cotteswolds by Scandinavian rocks, 

 examples of which are said to occur at Bedford and Hatton 

 in Warwickshire. 



VI. — Transport of the Drift 

 Submergence. — Murchison,' Phillips,^ and Lucy^ con- 

 sidered that the Drift was transported during a marine submer- 

 gence ; but if such had been the case the more elevated 

 superficial deposits of the district would have occurred at 

 more uniform elevations. This uniformity does not exist ; 

 the deposits do not contain marine shells, and are formed of 

 local detritus, and there is no evidence of the extensive changes 

 in land-level that would necessarily be involved if such a theory 

 were correct. 



It is not improbable, however, that during or even since 

 the Glacial Epoch the Severn and Avon Plain may have been 

 subject to estuarine conditions ; but there is no evidence that 

 any of the gravels above a height of about 150 feet O.D. were 

 laid down in an arm of the sea as suggested by Murchison,* 

 Strickland' and Lloyd. ^ Marine shells have been found in the 

 vicinity of the Cotteswolds at Cropthorne, but these shells are 



I " Silurian System," p. 530. 2 " Geol. Oxford," p. 462. 3 Proc. Cottesvv. Nat. 



F.C., vol, vii., pp. 53-4. 4 " Silurian System," p. 552 : see also Mellard Reade, C.N.F.C, vol. xiv., 



pp. 111-3. 5 "Memoirs of H. E. Strickland," p. 104. 6 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 



vol. xxvi., p. 223 : see also E. Witchell, " Geol. Stroud," p. 98. 



