VOL. XVII. (3) SEVERN PLAIN IN GLACIAL EPOCH 



365 



THE LOWER SEVERN PLAIN DURING THE 

 GLACIAL EPOCH 



BY 



JOSEPH W. GRAY. PG.S. 



The position and extent of the plain between the Cottes- 

 wolds and the Malverns indicate a greater antiquity than that 

 assigned to it by Lucy who referred the principal part of the 

 denudation of the Oolitic rocks to an early part of the Glacial 

 Epoch. ^ Symonds was of opinion that the area underwent 

 enormous denudation following on the Ice Age and subsequent 

 submergence.^ Ramsay suggested that after a marine sub- 

 mergence of the Cottes wolds, the Severn cut a channel through 

 an accumulation of boulder-clay in the original valley, the 

 shaping of the contours of which commenced in Miocene 

 times. ^ 



There are no data upon which a satisfactory estimate of 

 the extent of the Post-Pliocene denudation of this district can 

 be based, but I think that lowering of the surface attribut- 

 able thereto has not been considerable except, perhaps, in that 

 part of the Severn Valley which was exposed to Glacial floods 

 from the north. When we consider the enormous length of 

 the Tertiary Period, during which the surface was exposed to 



1 Proc. Cotteswold N.F.C., vol. v., pp. iio-ii. 



2 Severn Straits, pp. 17-18. 



3 Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain, p. 143. 



AA2 



