304 REVIEW — GEOLOGY OF THE FENLAND. 



Iltbiffos. 



The Geology of the Fenland. By S. B. J. Skektchley, F.G.S. 

 London : Longmans and Co., 1877. 8vo. Price 40s. 



Another Geological Survey Memoir of 335 pages, with some good maps, 

 sections, and woodcuts, but which should have been issued at about half 

 the price mentioned above. The Survey is supported by a Parliamentary 

 grant, its officers receive nothing extra for the memoirs they write, the 

 publication of which is, indeed, absolutely necessary if the public is to be put 

 in possession of the information which it has a right to expect, and yet 

 this is long delayed, and finally pubhshed in a badly got up style and 

 at a high price, contrasting ill with similar publications of other nations, 

 and even with those of our own colonies. 



The Fenland embraces an area of about 1,300 square miles, 

 lying round the Wash, and reaching to Wainfleet and Lincoln 

 on the north, Stamford and Peterborough on the west, and 

 Ely and King's Lynn on the south and east respectively. All 

 this is a low flat country, under which he the great Oolitic clays— the 

 Kimmeridge and the Oxfordian. But upon these are spread a great 

 thickness of boulder clay, and of gravel, peat, and silt of later date. 



Mr. Skertchley has not confined himself to the strictly geological features 

 of his district ; he has considered, and rightly so, that the Archaeology and 

 the Physical Geography of the region are so closely bound up with the 

 Gcolog}' that the one cannot properly be described without the other, 

 and hence his memoir is, perhaps, the most readable which has ever 

 been issued by the Sm-vey. He has carefully studied old documents, and 

 traces the history downwards, from the time of the Eomans to that of 

 the present day. 



The oldest deposit noticed is the Great Chalky Boulder Clay. 

 This varies from dark to light blue in colour, and is full of 

 striated lumps of chalk ; it also contains specimens of basalt, quartzito, 

 coal-measure sandstone, Silurian limestone, slate, flint, &c. In a deep 

 well sunk at Boston in 1828 this deposit was found to be of the enormous 

 thickness of 460 feet. It was here underlain by sands and gi-avels (Middle 

 Glacial) which were pierced to the depth of 88 feet, while it was overlaid 

 by 24 feet of silt. The author strongly advocates the terrestrial origin of 

 this boulder clay. He beheves that it was formed underneath a great 

 glacier, which came pushing down from the northward. In ago he 

 would correlate it with the Lower Boulder Clay of Lancashire. At 

 lloslyn Hole, near Ely, a great mass of cretaceous rocks is described, 

 which some Geologists have tried to account for by a complicated system 

 of faults, but which Mr. Skertchley shows to be an enormous boulder, ho 

 having seen true boulder clay surrounding and underlying the whole. 

 This transported mass is about 400 yards in length by (U) yards in breadth, 

 and may be compared with the one at Ponton, through which the Great 

 Northern lino is cut, and with several of similar character in East 

 Leicesterahire and Lincolnshire. 



