496 



PLEISTOCENE. 



diorite, mica-schist, slaty, and old fossiliferous rocks. One boulder measured 27 

 feet in circumference. These beds have been described by Mr. Godwin-Austen 

 as Glacial deposits.' The transported fragments may have come from the coast of 

 Normandy and Brittany, or from old rocks (now destroyed) that may have been 

 nearer ; and many of the boulders are so large that they must have been drifted 

 into their present positions by coast-ice. The gravel contains a few littoral shells 

 of living species, indicating an ancient coast-line. The superficial deposits of the 

 south-east of England exhibit no positive evidence of Glacial action.^ 



MIDLAND COUNTIES. 



In the Midland Counties there are extensive deposits of Drift formed of rocks 

 from many different formations. The area between Wolverhampton and Stafford 

 may, in the opinion of Mr. Mackintosh, be regarded as the meeting-ground of 

 erratics from the N.N.W., and of erratics from the E.N.E., the former chiefly 

 granite and felstone, the latter chiefly Cretaceous and Jurassic debris. These 

 deposits he regards as a southerly continuation of the Lower Boulder-clay of 

 Lancashire, Cheshire, etc., and as passing into the Chalky Clay of the Eastern 

 counties. The true Chalky Clay, both in his opinion and in that of Mr. W. J. 

 Harrison, does not extend much further west than Charnwood Forest.^ It has, 

 however, been observed in a railway-cutting between Kenilworth and Berkeswell, 

 west of Coventry.* There is no evidence of Upper and Lower Boulder Clays in 

 the area around Wolverhampton and Stafford ; but these divisions, with inter- 

 vening Middle Drift, have been found by Dr. Crosskey at ' California,' Harborne, 

 near Birmingham.* 



The Drift of Warwickshire contains pebbles similar to those in the Trias of 

 Budleigh Salterton in Devonshire, and derived from the Bunter Pebble-beds 

 of Cannock Chase, etc. (See p. 225.) Much of the country north-west of Rugby, 

 also around High Cross, near Wibtoft (known as 'the centre of England'), is 

 covered with stony clay, sand, and gravel. At New Bilton, near Rugby, the Lias 

 clay beneath the Drifts is contorted.*' Erratics from Mount Sorrel occur at 

 Leicester and Coventry, indicating in that neighbourhood a south-westerly 

 dispersion of rocks from the Charnwood district.' 



At Tickhill, west of Bawtry, the Drift clay is used for brick-making ; and at 

 Annesley, in Nottinghamshire, Mr. Aveline describes the gravel as sometimes 

 cemented together into a breccia, and at Blidworth this forms isolated masses 

 popularly known as Druidical remains. 



Quartzose gravel occurs in places on Wychwood Forest, north-west of Oxford, 

 aud there is much Drift clay and gravel around Buckingham. 



The older geologists were much puzzled to account for the occurrence of 

 fragments and masses of Chalk far away from the formation where it occurs 

 in siitc : thus such masses were noticed at Sywell in Northamptonshire, at 

 Ridlington in Rutlandshire, and at Stukeley in Huntingdonshire.'* They are now 

 known to form part of the Glacial Drift, and similar transported beds occur in 

 Norfolk and elsewhere. (See sequel.) 



' Godwin-Austen, Q. J. xiii. 46, 59, xii. 4. 



* See Murchison, Q. J. vii. 349. 



^ Q. J. XXXV. 451, xxxvi. 178. See also Jukes, S. Staft. Coal-field, ed. 2, 

 p. 207 ; and Memoirs of H. E. Strickland, by Sir W. Jardine, 185S, pp. 90, 105. 



* W. Andrews, Proc. Warwick Field Club, 1S84, p. 32. See also P. B. 

 Brodie, Q. J. xxiii. 208, 209 ; Rev. A. H. W. Ingram, Q. J. xxxv. 678. 



* H. W. Crosskey, Proc. Birmingham Phil. Soc. iii. iv. ; Crosskey and C. J. 

 Woodward, Ibid. 1873, p. 43 ; see also Brodie, Q. J. xxxvii. 434. 



^ J. M. Wilson, Q. J. xxvi. 192. 

 ' Rev. W. Tuckwell, Brit. Assoc. 18S6. 



^ Conybeare and Phillips, Geol. Eng. and Wales, p. 63 ; Buckland, T, G. S. 

 V. 539 ; Fitton, T. G. S. (2), iv. 308. 



