OfTdBER 3, 1895J 



NA TURE 



559 



In his secoiul paper, Mr. Harmer acknowledged that the Eocene 

 shells, and probably some others found in the nodule bed at 

 Waldringfield, were undoubtedly derivative ; but he contended 

 that it was possible that others belonged to the period which 

 elapsed between the deposition of the Red Crag at Walton and 

 that at Butley. This conclusion was mainly based on the fact 

 that many of them are found in situ in the Belgian Crags of this 

 age. 



Mr. Burrows followed with a paper on the distribution of 

 P'oraminifera in the Crags. In the Upper Crag, or Newer 

 riiocene, there are 29 species of common Xorth .Atlantic 

 Foraminifera ; in the Red Crag 20 species ; and in the St. Krth 

 beds 163, of which 66 occur also in the Coralline Crag. Some 

 of the Coralline Crag Foraminifera appear to have been derived 

 from older deposits. Notes were given on the age of the different 

 portions of the Coralline Crag now or formerly exposed at several 

 im|>ortant localities. 



Next came two papers on Southwold ; the first by .Mr. 11. B. 

 Woodward, on a section recently exposed by denudation at the 

 North Cliff, and a second on recent coast erosion there, by Mr. 

 .Spiller. The Norwich Crag is succeeded by chalky boulder clay, 

 and thai by a fresh-water loam, peaty earth, and a recent beach 

 deposit, in which a human skeleton w.as found this year. Mr. 

 Spiller's paper gave an account of the erosion of the North Cliff 

 during a storm in .May last, and by measurements taken since, 

 and comparison with a map previously made by Mr. Whitaker, 

 he concluded that different points on the coast had been eroded 

 at the following rate : — 



Feet. 

 Ea.ston Bavents .. ... Loss in 6 years ... 20 

 Easton High Cliff ... ., 13 ,, ... 22 



Covehithe Cliff ... 6 ,, ... 84 



In two short papers which followed, the Rev. E. Hill attri- 

 buted the formation of some boulder clays to rapi<l deposit by 

 the agency of water under the influence of floating ice and ice- 

 rafls, a conclusion strongly controverted l)y several advocates of 

 the land-ice theory who were present. A third paper, by the 

 same author, described traces of an ancient watercourse seven 

 miles long in Suffolk. 



A paper, by Messrs. Reid and Ridley, described their recent 

 researches by Ijoring, and an examination of the deposits above 

 the water-level, at lloxne. The following is the section dis- 

 closed, revealing the apparent existence of a temperate flora l)e- 

 twecn the morainic deposits and the Arctic plant bed. A grant 

 was made by the Association to enable Mr. Reid to continue 

 this work, with a view of determining the rel.ation of the 

 PaLvolithic remains to the Glacial epoch. 



Feel, 

 (iravelly surface soil ... ... ... about 2 



Hrick-earth ; towards the base Valvata pisfinaliSy 

 cyprids, bones of ox, horse, elephant (?), and 

 PaUeolithic implements ... ... about 12 



.Sandy gravel, sometimes carbonaceous, with flint 



flakes ... ... ... ... .ibout i 



Peaty clay, with leaves of Arctic plants (?) ... about 4 

 Lignite, with wood of yew, oak (?), white birch, and 



seeds of cornel, &c. ... .. ... about i 



(jreen calcareous clay, with fish, Valvata pisciiialis, 

 Bylhinia teiitaculata, cyprids, Raimnciilus repens, 

 Carcx ... ... ... ... about 4 



Boulder clay. 



The day's work was closed by a paper from the President, on 

 some Suffolk wells, six of which penetrate some distance into 

 the chalk. 



Tuesday was devoted almost exclusively to papers on glacial 

 subjects, opening with an interesting communication by Prof 

 Sollas on artificial gl.aciers, or " poissiers," made of pitch. This 

 paper was illustrated by pitch models split longitudinally, lan- 

 tern photograplis, and models in Canada balsam, images of 

 which could be thrown on the screen. The main point to which 

 attention was directed was the power of the viscous substance to 

 carry grains of rice, sand, or pigment uphill when confronted by 

 a barrier, or when driven into a narrow gorge. The conclusion 

 drawn was that ice and ]iitch conformed to the laws of fluid 

 motion, and this was fiirther illustrated by the flow of water 

 over a raised model of Ireland, when the currents conformed to 

 the directions of former ice movement. The pitch .sometimes 

 travelled over heaps of loose material without disturbing them. 



NO. 1353, VOL. 52] 



-Mr. Clement Reid followed with some illustrations of the 

 glacial sections at Cromer, showing the great chalk boulders, 

 the contortion of the chalk, and the contortion, crushing, 

 brecciation, and shearing of the boulder clay at that locality. 

 Prof. W. B. Scott gave an illustrated description of the " Bad 

 Lands," and showed that this area was in Tertiary times the 

 site of a succession of great lakes whose history extended from 

 the beginning of ihe Eocene period up to Pleistocene times. 

 Evidence of change in climate is given by the gradual disappear- 

 ance of palms, and the diminution in numbers and variety of the 

 reptiles. A paper by .Mr. R. B. White described various deposits 

 in Colombia (New Granada) to which he attributed a glacial 

 origin ; he recognises moraines, erratic blocks, breccias and 

 conglomerates, in places mostly made up of volcanic materials, 

 but elsewhere made of the debris of sedimentary rocks. The 

 paper concluded with some novel speculations as to the cause of 

 the Ice Age. 



Mr. B. Thompson de.scribed a number of pre-glacial valleys 

 Northamptonshire, belonging to the following chief types. 

 New valleys without drift and having old filled-up valleys near 

 at hand ; (2) valleys with rock on one side and drift on the 

 other ; (3) streams re-excavating old, drift-filled, valleys : (4) 

 re-e.xcavated valleys with the drift only left in the form of river- 

 gravel derived from it. In his account of some Snowdonian 

 tarns, Mr. W. W. Walts concluded that one of the shallow 

 lakes in Cwm Glas was in a very shallow rock- basin, and the 

 other dammed by scree- and stream-detritus. Glaslyn and Ll)'n 

 Llydaw, though finding exit over moraine, had rock-barriers at 

 dejiths of from thirty to fifty feet below the lake surface, so that 

 they are either confined in true rock-basins, or else are very 

 much shallower than is generally supposed. 



The Committee for exploring the supposed glacial shell-bed at 

 Clava, hoped to bring important results out within the year, and 

 that engaged in exploring the Calf Hole cave also hoped to 

 finish its lists of fossils in the same period. In reporting on the 

 high-level flint drift near Ightham, Mr. Harri.son described 

 excavations made into a gravel 658 feet above the sea on the 

 face of the chalk escarpment ; worked flints, chiefly scrapers and 

 flakes, were found in great quantity. In the discussion Sir John 

 Evans expressed scepticism as to the human origin of the 

 supposed worked flints. 



The Committee on Coast Erosion published a final report 

 which contains an abstract of previous reports, and a considerable 

 amount of new information from Kent, Sufiblk, Sussex, Hamp- 

 shire, Norfolk, Yorkshire, the Northern counties, Lancashire, 

 and North Wales. The Committee concludes that the work of 

 devastation is much aided by the abstraction of shingle and 

 sand, and also by the erection of un.satisfactory sea-walls and 

 groynes. They further recommend that the subject should 

 become the work of a departmental Committee of the House of 

 Commons. The twenty-first and final report of another long- 

 standmg Committee gives a useful summary of principles guiding 

 underground water supply, and then resigns its task to the 

 local scientific societies, which are urged to communicate all 

 information received to the Geological Survey Oftice at Jermyn- 

 street, where careful records are now kept. Such a course 

 naturally will give increased value to the information daily 

 supplied to inquirers from that office. In the last paper Mr. 

 Holmes gave lurther information on an ancient silted-up stream 

 course which flowed between the high ground of Warley, 

 Billericay, and Maldon on the one hand, and that of Laindon, 

 Rayleigh, and .Vlthorne on the other, into the Blackwater. The 

 deposits of this river were covered by the highest (oldest) gravel 

 terrace of the Thames system. A paper by Messrs. Lomas 

 and Kendall dealt with the stria; produced by modern glaciers. 

 The first paper on Saturday was that of Prof. Marsh on some 

 European Dinosaurs. He exhibited a diagram placing American 

 and European forms side by side, and showing that the European 

 types filled up gaps in the American series. In many of his 

 restorations he differed decidedly from those which have been pre- 

 viously published, some of which he characterised as being like 

 nothing " in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the 

 waters under the earth." The Connecticut Trias.sic footprints he 

 attributed to Dinosaurs and not birds. The Committee appointed 

 to endeavour to recover the missing portions of the Cetiosaurus 

 skeleton in the Oxforil Museum had been unable to carry out 

 their work within the year, but they had now determined on their 

 course of action, and obtained the requisite permission, so that 

 they hoped to complete the work before the Liverpool meeting. 

 Mr. Montagu Browne communicated a description of a section 



