VOL. XVII (3) SEVERN PLAIN IN GLACIAL EPOCH 379 



Among the few discoveries of human bones in the super- 

 ficial deposits is that recorded by Professor Hull, who was 

 informed by Wright that a large human lower jaw was found in 

 Cheltenham in Drift gravel beneath I2| feet of what is dis- 

 cribed as " undisturbed clay." ' The depth of clay and gravel 

 indicates great changes since the bone was imbedded, and it 

 may have been derived from a still older deposit. 



Human bones found at a depth of 40 feet in the silt at 

 Tewkesbury probably belong to some period of marine or 

 lacustrine submergence in Post-Pliocene times. 



Some flints supposed to be of PalgeoHthic Age^ have been 

 found near Conderton by Mr. William Bruton. 



IV. — Conclusion 



The nature and position of the deposits above described 

 suggest a partial derivation from moraines left by ice sheets 

 that approached the district on the north and east. Other 

 parts may be remnants of Tertiary river gravels. 



Vast quantities of morainic debris must have been carried 

 from the valleys of the Worcestershire Stour, the Teme, Avon, 

 and Leadon into the Severn Valley, which was the principal 

 channel of drainage while the ordinary outlets to the sea on 

 the east and west were closed by ice during the Glacial Epoch. 



It is probable that the northern erratics near the mouth 

 of the River Salwarpe, and even as far south as Upton Warren 

 and Feckenham, were carried by land ice to their present 

 positions, beyond which there is no evidence of its further 

 advance in a southerly direction. 



It may be doubted whether the waters by which erratics 

 were transported into the Lower Severn Valley reached a 

 sufficient height to permit of the stranding of ice-floes on the 

 summit of Apperley Hill. The contours then existing and the 

 occurrence of floods of great depth from melting snow and 

 ice in the large area drained by the Severn during the Glacial 

 Epoch may, however, have furnished the necessary conditions. 



1 Q.J.G.S., vol. xi., 1855, p. 489. 



2 Now in the Public Museum at Worcester. 



BB 



