GEOLOGY 



mentions the unearthing of the tusk of elephant ; Dr. Garner * also 

 records remains of elephant and rhinoceros, associated with the bones 

 of red deer and roebuck, from the ' diluvial ' gravels of the same 

 neighbourhood. In altering the course of the Fowlea brook a fine 

 skull of the wild bull (Bos taurus var. primigenius) with the horn cores 

 complete was found near Etruria station. 3 Remains of Bos taurus var. 

 longifrons and Bos urus have also been met with at Stone. 3 



It might be expected that, regarding their frequent occurrence in 

 Derbyshire where recent discoveries show that the caves have probably 

 existed from Pliocene times, 4 the remains of animals would be plenti- 

 fully met with in fissures and caverns of the Carboniferous Limestone 

 country of Staffordshire. This however is not the case, but from a 

 fissure in the limestone at Bank End quarry, Waterhouses, in the valley 

 of the Hamps, a large number of remains of Elepbas primigenius 

 (mammoth) have been extracted from a red loamy clay mixed with 

 fragments of limestone and rolled boulders of grit. 6 



The rivers continued to suffer shrinkage down to the historical 

 period and further modified their channels. This is best exhibited 

 around Burton," in the Trent valley, where a narrow fringe of alluvium 

 borders the river. This, as well as the higher, more elevated terraces, 

 has been liable to floods, of which the record will be dealt with by 

 the historian. 



The solid framework of the county has now been traced from the 

 earliest rock-written record to the time when the landscape assumed its 

 familiar outline. Everywhere physical feature has been found dependent 

 on geological structure : the diversified moorland of the north, the two 

 great coalfields, the enveloping lowlands, have all been traced to the 

 composition of the rocks and their structure. The history of the past 

 contained in the rocks is everywhere incomplete, and may be faithfully 

 summed up in the words of Charles Darwin in speaking of the 

 geological record as a whole : ' For my part, I look at the geological 

 record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a 

 changing dialect only here and there a short chapter has been pre- 

 served ; and of each page only here and there a few lines.' 



1 Natural History of the County of Stafford, p. 202 (1686). 



J Trans. North Staff. Field Club, vol. for 1878. 



3 Ibid. xxx. 1 10. 



4 W. Boyd Dawkins, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xlix. (1903). 



5 W. Brockbank, Proc. Lit. and Phill. Soc. Manchester (1862-4) ; J. Aitken, Traits. Manchester 

 Geol. Soc. vol. xii. (1870-3). 



8 W. Molyneux, Burton-on-Trent ; its History, its Waters, etc. (1868). 



