90 Reports & Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



A few years ago the author described a bed of Scandinavian drift 

 that was found filling up a. small pre-Glacial valley-like depression 

 at Warren House Gill on the Durham coast. This section and 

 others north and south of it have been kept under observation at 

 different times, and several new features have been noticed as the 

 high tides and other agencies exposed parts of the coast. 



Towards the southern end of the old pre-Glacial valley at Warren 

 House Gill a bed of material, varying from 4 to 12 feet in thickness, 

 was found overlying the Magnesian Limestone and also the 

 Scandinavian drift. This material has been carefully examined 

 chemically and microscopically, and proves to be identical in 

 chemical and physical characters with a sample of the true Con- 

 tinental loess. It is light-brown or fawn in colour, very porous, 

 and extremely finely divided, and is devoid of plasticity. Towards 

 the base, where it has not been disturbed since it was laid down, 

 it contains a number of rounded and elongated, often very hard, 

 calcareous concretions. In the cliff section it shows little or no 

 trace of bedding, but tends to break down along vertical clefts and 

 cracks. It passes upwards into a few feet of material that consists 

 of loess which has been partly redeposited by water, and is mixed 

 with sand, gravel, and other material derived from Scandinavian 

 drift. 



The bed of loess and redeposited loess-like drift has suffered much 

 decalcification and Aveathering; near its surface there was a large 

 boulder of Norwegian titaniferous syenite Which was superficially 

 rotted and decomposed to a considerable depth. Smaller granitic 

 erratics in the redeposited loess are generally very much rotted. 

 The limestone rubble and stones beneath the loess are strongly 

 calcreted, apparently by material leached out of the loess. In 

 a fissure beneath the loess some mammalian bones were collected, 

 including astragali of two species of Cervus. It is argued that the 

 formation and subsequent decalcification of the loess deposit lying 

 upon the Scandinavian drift indicates an interglacial lapse of 

 considerable duration, as great as that which Continental geologists 

 call an Interglacial Period, before the overlying English and Scottish 

 drift was deposited. 



About 2 miles south of the Scandinavian drift-bed several fissures 

 occur in the Magnesian Limestone cliffs and on the foreshore, filled 

 with various materials that were transported in front of the earliest 

 ice-sheet that advanced upon this part of the coast. The author 

 has already recorded the occurrence in these fissures of Upper 

 Permian red and grey marls and dolomites with clay and peaty trees. 

 Continued examination of two of the fissures where they are exposed 

 between tide-marks on the shore resulted in the finding of a quantity 

 of freshwater mollusca, Ostracoda, and fish - remains. Some 

 mammalian remains also occurred, including those of an elephant 

 (probably Elephas meridionalis) and of a vole (Mimomys). 



Vegetable matter has been washed from various parts of the clay. 

 A large number of seeds came from a single patch of clay, and prove 

 to be of Teglian age ; they seem to represent a pre-Glacial flora, 

 half of the species of which are either exotic or extinct. Seeds from 



