368 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1912 



Symonds states that in the construction of the locks at 

 Tewkesbury a depth of nearly one-hundred feet of " Post- 

 Pliocene silts," the upper part of which contained British and 

 Roman pottery and a few Roman coins, was passed through 

 before reaching the basement-bed of Drift pebbles.' This 

 depth is not in agreement with other borings and may be an 

 excessive estimate or may indicate a deeper part of the old 

 river channel, probably the former. 



Mr. G. W. Keeling has kindly supplied me with particulars 

 of a trial-boring near the same place : — 



ft. in. 



2 o . . Loam. 



16 o . . Sound red brick clay. 



14 o . . Imperfect blue Lias clay intermixed with black mud, 

 decayed leaves, and other vegetable matter. 



4 o . . Compact blue Lias clay. 



— — . . A bed of water-bearing gravel ; thickness not recorded. 



Two miles below the bridge at Upton-on-Severn the 

 depth of the beds overlying the pebbles was found to be 

 20 feet. The river-silt and brick-earth, also with Drift pebbles 

 at the base, at Alney Island, north of Gloucester, are about 

 20 feet thick, at Llanthony about 25 feet, and at Westgate 

 Bridge about 33 feet.'' 



I have not seen in the Severn Valley anything of the 

 nature of till or any clay that could have been deposited 

 directly from the great ice-sheets, or beds crumpled or folded 

 thereby. 



Flints occur in most of the gravels and are numerous 

 near the confluence of the Avon and Severn, where they are 

 principally of the Avon Valley type. They become smaller 

 and more water -worn and decayed as the Severn is approached 

 from the east, and occur only for a short distance from the river 

 on the western side, where I saw a few in the gravel at Bushley 

 Cross and Sarn Hill. Flints do not appear to have been found 

 in the pebbly gravel under the deep river-silts. 



Some of the flints in this area were probably carried by 

 torrents from the Avon Valley to the south of Bredon Hill 

 along the course of the river Isborne and the Carrant 



1 Proc. Cott. N.F.C., vol. iii., 1861, p. 37 ; Severn Straits, p. 59. 



2 Admiralty Survey, 1849. 



