54 



a brown sandy soil ; the base is piped, and pockets of light- 

 coloured sand full of flints descend into the chalk below. 



A small excavation north-west of this exhibited 10 feet of 

 coarse flint gravel, a few lenticular patches of similar chalky 

 sand producing a rough appearance of bedding ; the whole 

 deposit has the appearance of being quickly accumulated from 

 the rapid denudation of Gravel, Boulder Clay, and Chalk, for the 

 flints though sometimes cracked, are angular and unworn, and 

 certainly have not been transported from any great distance. 



About six feet of the same gravelly material is seen in the 

 railwa}'' cuttings. And beyond this the ridge is prolonged till it 

 is cut off by the hollow in w'hich Great Wilbraham lies, across 

 which it has clearly once extended to join the long gravel-capped 

 ridge presently described. 



An examination of the other valleys which furrow the 

 northward slopes of the Balsham and Wratting hills discloses in 

 them also the existence of similar deposits, and small patches 

 near Larks Hall have yielded Mammalian bones in some abun- 

 dance ; specimens are now in the Woodwardian Museum, and 

 among them can be recognised teeth and bones of Elephas, 

 Ehinoceros, Hippopotamus, and Cervus. 



It is worthy of note also that the bottom of the neighbouring 

 valley is occupied in places with a recent wash of sand and 

 flints, very similar in character to the old gravels on the slope 

 above ; it has no doubt been largely derived from these, and 

 while serving to indicate their once greater extension up the 

 valley, it shows at the same time that even this second trans- 

 portation has failed to reduce the flints to a rounded shape ; 

 long attrition is required to effect this, and the rapidity of the 

 process here has not allowed sufficient time, for the valley is 

 usually dry, and the detritus is only brought down by heavy 

 rains and floods such as I was a witness of in 1875. 



The patches above mentioned lead on to an elongated outlier 

 which is cut through by the Newmarket railway near Six-Mile 

 Bottom Station. Here material is seen precisely similar to that 

 in the former cutting S. of Wilbraham ; and beyond this point 

 a long ridge may be followed in a north-westerly direction, till 

 it turns westward below Quy-cum-Stow. This ridge is indeed 

 the line of the old river-course, and it owes its existence as a 



