Notes and Comments. 303 
butions of Fritz Muller, Meldola, Poulton, and others, and 
illustrated his remarks by a beautiful set of lantern slides. In 
proposing a vote of thanks to the lecturer, the President, Sir 
David Gill, pointed out that Bates was a native of Leicester. 
VIKING RELICS AT YORK. 
On this subject, Dr. G. A. Auden read an interesting paper 
to the Anthropological Section. During the autumn of 1906 
excavations for building purposes in the city of York, a few 
yards from the left bank of the Ouse, had revealed a number 
of objects which may with certainty be referred to the Viking 
period. The area in question is situate at the junction of Ness- 
gate and Coppergate, and contiguous to the site in which a 
large number of objects, dating from the Scandinavian occupa- 
tion, were found during excavations for the Public Library 
and Friends’ Meeting House in 1884. Several objects are 
enumerated which have not been previously reported in England, 
and amongst these the chief interest centres in a bronze chape 
of a sword scabbard, exhibiting an open zodmorphic interlacing 
design terminating in a conventionalised animal head which 
attached the chape to the material of the scabbard. The 
zoOmorphic motif is further illustrated by several portions of 
contemporaneous stonework which have been found from time 
to time in York, slides of which were shown. A consensus of 
opinion upon the objects described attributes them to the first 
half of the tenth century—a period which saw the Scandinavian 
power in York rise to its zenith. 
HOLDERNESS GRAVELS. 
To the Geological Section, Messrs. T. Sheppard and J. W. 
Stather gave some Notes on a New Section in the Glacial 
Gravels of Holderness. In these they pointed out that the 
North-Eastern Railway Company had recently been making 
some extensive excavations in a hill situated between the well- 
known Kelsey Hill and Burstwick Gravel Pits, in central 
Holderness. At the present time the section exposed is prob- 
ably the finest of its kind in the country. The cutting is made 
through the heart of the hill, and is 1300 ft. long, and 45 ft. 
high in the centre, from which the section gradually slopes. 
The sides of the hill are flanked by boulder clay, and irregular 
masses also occur at intervals in the gravel. There are two 
types of boulder clay visible, the upper or Hessle clay, contain- 
ing a preponderance of Cheviot rocks, and the purple or middle 
1907 September 1. 
