TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 91 



some cause acting locally, thougli it miglit probably be due to a universal ice- 

 sheet. 



The fact of these beds being thickest in the main valleys and extending into the 

 tributary valleys, the high laud being usually free from them, shows the general 

 contour of the country to have been much the same in preglacial times as it is now. 



The long ridges of gravel which extend in a somewhat broken and curved line 

 from Burley Moor to Hawkesworth, are composed of limestone gravel, forming a 

 bank about CO yards wide and 10 to 20 feet high, being at the north end 1150 feet 

 and at the south GOO feet above the sea-level, thus running across the gi'ound 

 irrespective of contour, and seem to be imdoubted Eskers. 



The mounds of gravel which occur in the valley of the Aire at Bingley are 

 composed of limestone gravel and boulders, the greatest proportion of which are 

 well-rounded pebbles veith faint traces of strife upon them ; this would point to re- 

 arranged di-ift, or drift which was subjected to tides and cun-ents dm-ing deposition. 

 This is further exemplified by the stratification being both up and down the valley, 

 and might have been formed when the land stood 300 or 400 feet below its present 

 level, the valley of the Aire being then an inlet of the sea up which the tide ebbed 

 and tiowed, and by its action formed these mounds from previously existing material. 



Hiver Deposits. — Gravel occurs at Exley Hall and Kirklees Park, 150 feet above 

 the present river, and is supposed to be of river formation. 



The river-terraces consist of sand, gravel, and clay, and occur in many places 

 along the course of the main rivers, as at Thornhill Lees in the valley of the 

 Calder, Oalverley in the valley of t)ie Aire, and in the valley of the Whai-fe almost 

 continuously from Burley to Poole. 



The recent alluvium is composed of fine loamy clay, sand, and gravel. Many 

 large trees have beenfoimd imbedded in this alluvium" in the valley of the Calder, 

 some of them being from 2 to 3 feet in diameter, and 60 feet in length. 



On the Occurrence of Elephant-remaim in the Basement Beds of the Bed 

 Crag. By J. E. Taylor, F.L.S., F.Q.S. 



The author exhibited a tooth from the basement bed of the Red Crag, where 

 Mastodon and other early Pliocene or late Miocene mammalia are met with. It had 

 been contended that the elephant-teeth did not come from this bed ; but the author 

 denied this from personal experience. The tooth in question was very peculiar, from 

 the width between the ridges, and its singular resemblance to the Mastodon type. 



On the Correspondence hetiveen some Areas of ajiparent Upheaval and the 

 Thickening of subjacent Beds. By W. Toplet, F.G.S., Geological Survey of 

 England. 



The author first referred to some known facts as to the thinning of strata in 

 certain directions, and he drew attention to the coincidence between the direction 

 of this thinning and the direction of the general dip. The south-easterly attenua- 

 tion of the Oolites of Central England (long since proved by Prof. Hull) and the 

 thinning-out of the Lower Cretaceous rocks under London, were the cases most 

 fully dwelt upon. Illustrations were also drawn from the Carboniferous rocks of 

 Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and the Lower Cretaceous rocks on the west of the 

 Paris basin. 



It was shown, as regards the areas described, that the rise of the beds is in that 

 direction in which the underlying beds obtained their greatest thickness. It has 

 hitherto been assumed that the rise and dip of strata is due to movements of the 

 earth's crust 5 but the author pointed out that, in the instances alluded to, this is 

 an erroneous conclusion. Only a small portion of tlie apparent upheaval could be 

 due to this cause, whilst in some cases it seemed that the whole of it could be ex- 

 plained by the thickening of subjacent beds. The author concluded by pointing 

 out the important bearing of these facts upon some ciun-eut geological theories, re° 

 ferring especially to the supposed connexion between the " upheaval " of the Weald 

 and the existing valley-systems of that area. 



