664 REPORT— 1894. 



(1) The Oxford clay, the bed-rock of the district, is furrowed at the surface 

 into wavy hollows, irregularly fiUed with earth containing quartz, lydian-stone, 

 and quartzite pebbles, and bunches of unstratified gravel from the Thames basin. 

 It is certainly a northern drift, in the writer's opinion a glacial drift. 



(2) At Wolvercote this drift is invaded, and for a certain distance removed by 

 river action, which has hollowed out the clay to a depth of 17^ feet, and 

 subsequently filled up the hollow with horizontal layers of gravel, mud, and sand. 



(3) The junction where the river eats into the drift is clearly visible. The 

 bank of drift, underworn by the water, overhangs the horizontal layer. 



(4) The lowest bed of the riverine depo.sits differs from the others : it consists 

 of 2^ feet of gravel and sand, in lenticular, shorn, and current-bedded layers, 

 showing by the size of the pebbles a somewhat rapid current. At the very base, 

 half embedded in the clay, many mammalian bones liave been found, and six 

 Palaeolithic implements. The implements represent well-known types of the river- 

 valley period, and the mammoth is conspicuous among the animal remains, though 

 £quus, Cervus elaphus, and Bison prisms are also present. 



Layers of sand are intercalated with the gravel, from which eleven species of 

 shells have been identified. They are all recent and, generally speaking, stunted 

 in size. 



(5) Above the gravel are two inches of sandy peat, marking a land surface of 

 some duration. Nine plants were identified by Mr. Clement Keid, which are all 

 epecies still to be found in the immediate neighbourhood. 



(6) For 14|^ feet sand and mud follow in successive layers. In these no fossil 

 has been found. They indicate quiet river action and an increase of pluvial 

 conditions. 



(7) Towards the surface they are traversed by an irregular line of trail, which 

 marks apparently the movement of a sludgy mass along the surface, punching it 

 downwards by its weight. 



(8) The surface level at Wolvercote is 240 feet above Ordnance datum. The 

 adjacent river surface is 195 feet. The gravel at Somerton and Oxford is about 

 218 feet. Thus between the two gravels there is a distance of 22 feet. At the 

 present rate of erosion many thousands of years would be necessary to remove 

 22 feet from the general surface ; but the fact that the remains of man and of 

 animals are the same in both gravels proves that they belong to a similar age, 

 though the gravel at Wolvercote is somewhat older than the other. We must 

 therefore consider that the denuding agents — rain and frost — were more active at 

 that period than they are at the present day. 



6. On Prehistoric Man in the Old Alluvium of the Saharmati River in 

 Gujarat, Western India. By R. Bruce Foote, F.G.S. 



Two finds of chipped (Palaeolithic) implements were made in a bed of shingle 

 occupying a definite horizon in the lower part of the old alluvium of the Saharmati 

 in latitudes 23° 25' and 23° 40' N. (about 330 miles north of Bombay). The 

 implements were found at a depth of about 70 feet below the surface of the 

 alluvium, which is here over 100 feet thick. The alluvium is overlaid by loss 

 and wind-blown loam, which varies from 80 to 150 feet in thickness. The river 

 has cut itself a bed varying from 100 to 200 feet in depth in these deposits, show- 

 ing that a great interval of time must have elapsed since the deposition of the old 

 alluvium in which the implements are embedded. On the surface of the liiss, 

 and in many cases on the summits of the blown-loam hills. Neolithic remains in 

 the form of "flint flakes and cores of the Jabalpur type were found together with 

 fragments of archaic pottery. 



6. On the Shai^e of the Banks of Small Channels in Tidal Estuaries. 

 By Professor H. Hennessy, F.R.S. 



Many j'ears since my attention was attracted by the peculiar shape of the soft 

 jnud banks bordering the channels through which water drains ott' the beds of 



