Correspondence — G. W. Lainplugh. 285 



brought below the Gault by Glacial overturn. This is the only point 

 which it concerns me to discuss at present, as the other issues raised 

 in their recent paper in your pages all depend upon it. 



With a much wider knowledge of the sections than I possessed in 

 1903, when the first account of the fossiliferous band was published 

 by the late J. F. Walker and myself (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 

 vol. lix, pp. 234-65), I shall maintain that the description of the 

 sequence and conditions then given was substantially accurate. Ever 

 since that time I have taken the neighbourhood of Leighton Buzzard 

 as my geological playground, revisiting the sections again and again, 

 often several times a year and rarely missing a year, attracted by 

 the fresh features disclosed in the extension of the great sand-pits 

 and in new excavations. Hence, I have now seen the fossiliferous 

 band at one time or another in a practically continuous section over 

 300 yards in length and 10 to 50 yards in breadth, from Garside's 

 pit on the south to Chance's pit on the north. Yet I have not found 

 in it the slightest trace of intercalated Glacial material or of Glacial 

 disturbance. Moreover, having made a particular study of glacially 

 transjDorted masses in Yorkshire and other places, I am the less likely 

 to have missed such evidence if it had been present. Also, on 

 reference to my notebook, I find that in April, 1914, I saw patches 

 of pale-pink gritty fossififerous limestone, somewhat decomposed, 

 associated with the breccia-band at the base of the Gault in the 

 Miletree Farm pit (see Fig. 3 of my critics' paper), which lies outside 

 the area of the supposed overturn ; and similar material was lately 

 visible in the same position in another section between this pit and 

 Shenley Hill. 



All the new features observed since 1903 have helped to confirm my 

 original view of the sequence. Between 1904 and 1906 the easterly 

 workings of the Garside's pit, now abandoned, disclosed new facts 

 which are absolutely irreconcilable with the hypothesis of Glacial 

 inversion. I mentioned some of these, in brief, in my report on the 

 visit of the Geologists' Association to Shenley Hill in 1908 (Proc. 

 Geol. Assoc, vol. xx, pt. vi, p. 475), and dealt similarly with the 

 Grovebury sections (with which we are not at present concerned) 

 in reporting on a later excursion to Leighton Buzzard in 1915 

 (Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xxvi, pt. v, p. 310) ; and as Dr. Kitchin 

 knows, I have embodied a further description of them in a paper 

 written just before the War and intended for publication at a 

 convenient season. This paper will afford me an opportunity to 

 deal in detail with the arguments of my critics. Meanwhile, it seems 

 advisable that I should state at once my disagreement with their 

 main conclusion, and show reason for believing it to be wrong. 



Last year it chanced that I could not conveniently visit the 

 sections, though I should have contrived to do so if I had been aware 

 that my colleagues' investigation was then in progress. However, 

 I have re-examined the pits twice during the past month, and am 

 satisfied that the features with regard to the fossiliferous band have 



