Geological Society of London. 93 



Powns, it was noticed that at the former place the beds lay at sea- 

 level, but ranging inland, they gradually rose to heights of from 500 

 to 600 feet ; that in the first instance they underlay all the Glacial 

 deposits, and in the second they rose high above them, and their 

 seeming subordination to the Glacial series altogether disappeared ; 

 thus at Braintree, where the Westleton Beds were largely developed, 

 they stood up through the Boulder-clay and gravel which wrapped 

 round their base, whilst further west, where they became diminished 

 to mere shingle-beds, they attained heights of from 850 to 400 feet, 

 capping London-clay hills, where the Boulder-clay lay from 80 to 100 

 feet lower down the slopes, the difference of level between the two 

 deposits becoming still greater in a westerly direction, until finally 

 the Boulder-clay disappeared. 



The origin of the component pebbles of the beds was discussed, 

 and their derivation traced (1) to the beds of Woolwich age in Kent, 

 N. France and Belgium, and possibly to some Diestian beds, (2) to 

 the older rocks of the Ardennes, (3) to the Chalk and older drifts, 

 and (4) to the Lower Greensand of Kent and Surrey, or in part to 

 the Southern drift. 



The marine nature of the beds was inferred from the included 

 fossils of the type-area, and the absence of these elsewhere accounted 

 for by decalcification. 



The southward extension of the beds was shown to be limited 

 by the anticlinal of the Ardennes aud the Weald, and the scanty 

 palseontological evidence of the nature of that land was noted, and 

 the possible existence of the Scandinavian ice-sheet to the north was 

 referred to in connexion with the disappearance of the beds in that 

 direction. 



From the uniform character of the Westleton shingles the author 

 maintained that they must originally have been formed on a com- 

 paratively level sea-floor, and that the inequalities in distribution 

 had been produced by subsequent diffei'ential movement to the 

 extent of 500 feet or more to the north and west above that 

 experienced to the east and south, where the chronological succession 

 remained unbroken, also that the inequalities below the level of the 

 Westleton beds had been produced since the period of their deposition, 

 as, for instance, the gorge of the Thames at Pangbourne and Goring, 

 and most of the Preglacial valleys in the district ; furthermore, 

 evidence was adduced in favour of the formation of the escarpments 

 of the Chalk and Oolites since Westleton times, whilst certain 

 observations supplied data for estimation of the relative amounts of 

 pre- and post-glacial denudation of the valleys. 



It was stated, in conclusion, that the time for the vast amount of 

 denudation was so limited that it was not easy to realize that such 

 limits could suffice, but the author did not see how the conclusions 

 which he had arrived at could well be avoided. 



II.— January 8, 1890.— W. T. Blanford, LL.D., F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. — The following communications were read: — 



1. " On some British Jurassic Fish-remains referable to the Genera 

 Eurycormus and Hypsocormiis." By A. Smith Woodward, F.G.S. 



