Professor E. Hull — Submerged Terraces ^ Valleys. 351 



result is very similar. The top of the Eocene strata near Bourne- 

 mouth is from 90 to 115 feet above the sea-level. It is about the 

 same at High Clifi" and Barton, and but little less near Lymington. 



It is the same with the lower plateau, in which the surface of the 

 Tertiary strata remains on a nearly uniform height above the sea- 

 level for a distance of about 18 miles. Surely it is impossible to 

 suppose that these levels can represent the gradients of a channel 

 such as the supposed river must have had. 



From Poole to Lymington, a distance of 20 miles, the gravel is 

 nearly a dead level, and for the whole 35 miles to Stubbington there 

 could only have been a fall of 60 to 70 feet. With these gradients, 

 the transport of such a mass of debris as" constitutes the gravel-beds 

 would have been an impossibility ; and equally unlikely would have 

 been the sudden ending of the mass at Stubbington, and the escape 

 of Hayling Island from the flood of this supposed river-gravel dritt. 

 Nor is the wear of the gravel as it must have been, had it been, 

 subjected to this long transport. In fact, there is no difference in 

 the wear between the gravel in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth 

 and that around Lymington — a condition equally inconsistent with 

 the primary assumption. 



It is, I think, more probable that the gravels on the Bournemouth 

 and Barton coast represent a vast "head" derived from the high- 

 level gravels further inland, for, like the latter, these coast gravels 

 contain a considerable proportion of chert, ragstone, and ironstone 

 fragments, derived originally from the Lower Greensand, and 

 introduced thus indirectly into these lower-level gravels. 



IV. — Further Investigations regarding the Submerged Terraces 

 AND EiVER Valleys Bordering the British Isles. ^ 

 By Professor Edwakd Hull, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 

 I. Introductory. — The researches of previous investigators have 

 had the result of showing that the platform on which are planted 

 the British Isles and adjoining parts of the European continent was 

 formerly connected by land with Iceland through the Shetland and 

 Faeroe Islands, and this again with Greenland. This former 

 connection is placed beyond doubt by the character of the fauna and 

 flora. Dr. Wallace includes Iceland in his Palsearctic region, which 

 embraces the British Isles and Europe;* and, as Professor Newton 

 has shown, all the land mammalia, with only three exceptions, 

 are European. The exceptions are those of Arctic habitats — the 

 polar bear, the Arctic fox, and a mouse {Mus Icelandicus) . Amongst 

 the birds, the peculiar species are allied to those of Europe and 

 the Faeroes. The botany and entomology of Iceland have been 

 described in the Transactions of this Institute by the Eev. Dr. 

 Walker, F.L.S.,^ and his observations bear witness to the former 



1 Eead before the Victoria Institute, May 2nd, 1898. Published by permission 

 of the Council of the Victoria Institute. The full paper, with map, will appear in 

 the forthcoming volume of the Transactions for 1897-98. — E. H. 



' " Geographical Distribution of Animals." 



^ Trans. Vict. Inst., vol. xxiv, p. 205. 



