314 On Britisli Drifts and tlw Infcn^/dcitil Prohlviu. 



other sorts of ddbris. In one case their quantity could have 

 been measured by some such unit as the was^on-load. ' * 



In our islands, as Professor V. F. Kendall has clearly shown 

 in discussing^ the drifts of Western Kng-land,t it is only where 

 the ice-lobes have passed over portions of the pre-existing;" 

 sea-floors that we find marine remains in the drift deposits ; 

 while in other places, at the same or lower elevations, where 

 there is proof that the ice-flow was from the land, such remains 

 are invariably absent. 



The occurrence of these shells in a few places at high 

 elevations, all explicable by consideration of the geographical 

 circumstances, gave rise to the idea of a great mid-glacial 

 submergence, and upon this idea the hypothesis of a mild 

 interglacial epoch has mainly hinged. In Professor Geikie's 

 latest scheme this supposed submergence is, indeed, reduced to 

 moderate limits, but it is still the essential factor in the 

 argument. 



The same idea of a moderate degree of submergence, accom- 

 panied by temperate conditions of climate has been applied by 

 Mr. Clement Reid | to the shelly gravels of Holderness. Mr. 

 Reid has also proposed to include the buried clitl-beds of 

 Sewerby in the same interglacial stage ; but as the gravels rise 

 to nearly 100 feet above the level of the old beach in northern 

 Holderness, and are separated from it by the Basement boulder- 

 clay, I am sure that this correlation cannot be sustained. 



These Holderness gravels are supposed to be absent fronr 

 the coast sections, and it is suggested that they may lie below 

 sea-level in this quarter ; but this is not very probable, as they 

 are found at an elevation of 50 feet within a few miles of the 

 coast in southern Holderness, and the Basement boulder-clay 

 rises well above sea-level in the clifl's at Dimlington. It is true 

 that the gravels of the coast sections afTord no support to the 

 idea of a mild interglacial submergence, and are evidently of 

 similar origin with the rest of the glacial deposits, but I can see 

 no other reason against their correlation with the gravels of 

 the neighbouring interior. Except in two or three limited 

 tracts, the shells in the Holderness gravels are as fragmentary, 

 and nearly as scanty, as in the moundy gravels of Flamborough 



* ' Glacial Gcolog-y of New JerM-y.' Rep. Ccol. Sitr-.rv ,>/ .\'r:c /rrsry, 

 vol. V. (1902), p. 81. (The quoted italics are in the original.) 



I III the late Professor H. Carvill Lewis's Glacial C.cology of Great 

 Britain and Ireland (London, 1894), Appendix A, pp. 425-431. 



:;: ' The Geology of Holderness. ■ Mem. 6V"/. .S"//n'<j' (1SS5). 



Naturalist, 



