272 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 191 1 



however, certain conditions not improbable during the Glacial 

 Epoch are taken into consideration there appears to be nothing 

 in the position or arrangement of the minute sub-divisions of 

 the Lower Avon Valley Drifts described by Lloyd, inconsistent 

 with the supposition that, instead of a large lake occupying the 

 whole of the area, a stream from the eastern ice-front was 

 ponded up at intervals by morainic debris, thus forming a 

 series of small lakes occupying different positions and levels 

 at various times. In these, laminated clay, sand and gravel 

 would be deposited and cut through and redistributed by 

 floods as the level was lowered, leaving the deposits now 

 skirting the stream. After the recession of the ice from the 

 vicinity of the Cotteswolds the Valley would still be the chan- 

 nel for enormous floods from the melting of the northern and 

 eastern glaciers, charged with detritus borne from increasing 

 distances as the ice retreated. The probabihty of such fluvio- 

 glacial conditions seems to render unnecessary an appeal to 

 the presence of a lake of considerable extent in the Vale of 

 Evesham in order to account for the complex deposits of that 

 part of the district. 



If the Drift had been transported by ice-floes on a lake 

 or the overflow therefrom into the Vale of Moreton, the deposits 

 would not have been confined to their present limited area on 

 the eastern flanks of the Cotteswold Range. 



That a lake of great extent ever occupied the district is 

 rendered still more improbable by the absence on the northern 

 slopes of the Cotteswolds of overflow channels such as are 

 described by Prof. P. F. Kendall as occurring in the Cleveland 

 district of Yorkshire. So far as I can ascertain there are no 

 indications of such an overflow at the places where it would 

 most likely occur except, perhaps, through the Mickleton Gap. 

 The local rocks, owing to their softness and liabihty to con- 

 siderable landslips, such as are visible now on the northern 

 slope of Meon Hill, are certainly not favourable to the preser- 

 vation of such signs ; still, a further investigation may reveal 

 examples hitherto overlooked. Lake-channels excavated in 

 very soft Jurassic silts preserve a sharp contour in the Cleve- 

 land area, even near the upper limits of glaciation ; but the 

 lake or lakes postulated in the Cotteswolds must have belonged 



