Dr. C. Callaway — Superficial Deposits N. Shropshire. 483 



would be useful to present a summary of my own observations 

 on tbe district in question, at the same time incorporating in my 

 notes the most important results of the work of preceding 

 geologists. 



I do not propose to enter into the controversy now proceeding 

 between the advocates respectively of land-ice and floating-ice, 

 except in so far as the war has been carried into Shropshire. The 

 facts that I have collected appear to me most consistent with the 

 theory that, in some part of the Glacial Epoch, the Salopian area 

 was submerged to a depth of at least 1100 feet; that during the 

 submergence sandy and shingly deposits wei'e laid down, the 

 materials of which wei'e largely derived from the north ; that 

 the marine origin of these beds is demonstrated by an abundant 

 molluscan fauna ; and that these deposits were overlain by erratics 

 and boulder-clay, let fall by floating-ice as the floes or bergs 

 melted or capsized. I have not found a single fact inconsistent 

 with this hypothesis, and I have not found a single fact clearly 

 pointing to the former existence in the Salopian area of a great 

 glacier. It is quite possible that, on the flanks of some of the 

 hill-ranges, there accumulated the slight beginnings of glaciers, 

 which carried debris from the higher ground to lower levels ; but 

 if such land-ice existed its effects were not very marked. 



First, as to the submergence. The deposits with marine shells, 

 found at Gloppa by Mr. A. C. Nicholson, are now well known. 

 They are at 1100 feet above sea-level. They are not to be dis- 

 tinguished from shore deposits now forming at many parts of 

 our coast. The shells they contain are often entire, but they are 

 more frequently broken, as in ordinary littoral sands. The natural 

 interpretation of these facts is, that Gloppa was visited by the 

 sea some time in the Glacial Epoch. That a sheet of ice once 

 scooped up gravels and shells from the bottom of the Irish Sea, 

 and pushed or dragged them to the top of the hills above 

 Oswestry, is a hypothesis that commends itself rather to the 

 intoxication of the theorizer than to the sobriety of the inductive 

 reasoner. 



The sands at Ketley, near Wellington, display facts still more 

 hostile to the land-ice theoi - y. The lower part of the section 

 consists of evenly-bedded sands, often clearly ripple-marked. The 

 rippled seams occur one above another to a thickness of some 

 yards, unmistakably indicating a continuance of littoral conditions. 



Sand and gi'avel, usually containing marine shells, are found 

 scattered over the surface of a large part of North Shropshire. At 

 Wollerton, near Hodnet, a gravel-pit displays twenty feet of pebbly 

 beds, with horizontal seams of red sand. Turritella and other 

 molluscs are fairly abundant. Besides the ordinary northern 

 erratics, the beds contain large pieces of Lias clay, with Gryplicea, 

 Pecten, and Belemnites. Flints are abundant. In one of them 

 I found a BhjnclioneUa. The Lias specimens are probably derived 

 from the Prees outlier. The flints have been referred to an Irish 

 origin, but of this there is no proof. 



