A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



south of Scotland and the Lake District ; it extended in the direction of 

 Warwickshire as far south as Lichfield, and all along its terminal line 

 notably in the neighbourhood of Wolverhampton are found great 

 numbers of granite and other boulders. The third or North Sea Glacier 

 issued from the North Sea, and part of it invaded the Yorkshire coast, 

 passed over the Lincolnshire chalk country, and made its way inland to 

 the high ground of Charnwood Forest. Here it seems to have divided 

 to some extent into lobes ; one travelling southwards by Leicester and 

 Rugby got as far as the valley of the Thames, while another made its 

 way to the south-west into the Avon valley, leaving abundant traces in 

 the form of chalk debris and pieces of flint scattered over the surface 

 or embodied in its gravelly and clayey deposits even as far as the vicinity 

 of Chipping Campden. 1 Traces of the debris carried by all these ice- 

 flows have been met with in our district, though our knowledge of these 

 deposits so far as Warwickshire is concerned is at present very incom- 

 plete, for no one observer has investigated the whole of them, and their 

 superficial limits have only very partially been determined. 2 We are 

 therefore compelled to treat the subject more or less bibliographically. 



One of the earliest investigators was Buckland, 8 who noticed the 

 abundance of gravel containing well rounded quartzite pebbles scattered 

 over the surface of the Midlands at various localities extending eastwards 

 and southwards of the Lickey district in north Worcestershire, particu- 

 larly at Coleshill and along the Lias plain near Shipston-on-Stour. He 

 traced these gravels down the Avon valley from Stratford to Evesham 

 and thence eastwards by Kineton, with prolongations southwards along 

 the Cherwell and Evenlode valleys. He recognized that these gravels 

 were largely derived as he thought by the waters of the ' deluge ' from 

 the Bunter pebble beds of the Trias. At the same time he recorded the 

 occurrence of fragments of igneous and metamorphic rocks with chalk 

 and chalk flints, while south-east of Shipston-on-Stour he noted pieces 

 of red chalk like that of Lincolnshire. These early observations alone 

 are sufficient to show that some form of transportive agency entered 

 the district from two different directions : from the north-east, and 

 from the north or north-west. 



Strickland 4 made some valuable observations on the drifts of the 

 district ; he pointed out that they are divisible into several types : first 

 is the quartzose drift which occurs on some of the hill tops, contains no 

 mammalian remains, and was apparently derived from the north. The 

 second or flinty type (equivalent probably to the chalky boulder clay) 

 is very prevalent in the east of the county and near Rugby, extending 

 thence along the base of the Oolite hills to the Vale of Shipston ; it 

 covers some of the hills to a considerable depth, contains many chalk 



1 See G. E. Gavey, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. ix. (1853), 29; also H. B. Woodward, Gcol, Mag. 

 (1897), p. 485. 



For a very foil list of papers on this subject see 'A Bibliography of Midland Glaciology,' by 

 Mr. W. J. Harrison in Prix. Birm. Nat. Hist, and Phil Soc. ix. (i 8<x) 1 16 



5 Tram. Geol. Soc. v. (1821), 506. 



* Memoin of Hugh E. Strickland (8vo, Lond. 1858), p. 90. 



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