CHAP, vi.] THE REINDEER-FORD AT WINDSOR. 155 



and the accumulation of shingle banks and of silt on the 

 inner side of the curves, will satisfactorily account for 

 the manner in which the deposits are distributed. The 

 river would visit each part of the valley in succession, 

 leaving behind its debris at the levels which it succes- 

 sively occupied. 



The Reindeer-ford at Windsor. 



The discovery of numerous fossil bones, teeth, and 

 antlers in a bed of gravel by Captain Luard, E.E., in 

 digging the foundations for the new cavalry barracks at 

 Windsor, in 1867, affords us the means of forming a 

 striking picture of the valley of the Thames in the late 

 Pleistocene age. On visiting the spot with him, I found 

 that more than one half of the remains belonged to the 

 reindeer, the rest to bisons, horses, wolves, and bears. 

 They had evidently been swept down by the current 

 from some point higher up the stream. In illustration 

 of this accumulation a parallel case may be quoted from 

 the observations of Admiral Von Wrangel, in Siberia. 

 "The migrating body of reindeer," he writes, " consists 

 of many thousands, and though they are divided into 

 herds of two or three hundred each, yet the herds keep 

 so near together, as to form only one immense mass, 

 which is sometimes from fifty to a hundred wersts, or 

 thirty to sixty miles, in breadth. They always follow 

 the same route, and in crossing the river Aniuj, near 

 Plobischtsche, they choose a place where a dry valley 

 leads down to a stream on one side, and a flat sandy 

 shore facilitates their landing on another. As each 

 separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw more 

 closely together, and the largest and strongest takes the 



