Obituary — Mr. B. J. Marten. 575 



is a Thetford on the Great Ouse, but that is not the place in 

 question. 



I do not deny the desirability of his making himself acquainted 

 ■with the literature of the subject, and a precis of it would be a 

 useful introduction to any detailed memoir on the Pleistocene 

 Deposits ; but I do deny that quotations from published papers, 

 however numerous, form a reasonable ground on which to base a 

 claim of having upset the generally accepted views of geologists 

 on any given point. 



Neither is it sufficient to deal only vpith the cases where the 

 test of superposition can be applied ; he practically admits this, by 

 referring to the valley of the Great Ouse, but gravels containing 

 Mammoth remains occur in many other valleys which are generally 

 considered to have been eroded out of a wide-spread mantle of 

 Glacial Drift, and this conclusion is not shaken by anything which 

 8ir H. Howorth has written. 



Sir Henry may have visited many places and have looked at many 

 sections, but it does not follow that he is qualified to draw sound 

 geological inferences from the phenomena before him. I should be 

 loth to find fault with any one who is seeking to ascertain the truth, 

 but it is the assumption that he has already found the truth by 

 merely sifting the literature of the subject that I venture to protest 

 against. 



I feel perfectly sure that if I pointed out a clear case of gravels 

 with Mammoth bones resting on Boulder-clay, Sir H. Howorth 

 would not accept it as final ; he would say there might have been 

 another Boulder-clay originally over the gravel, as is supposed by 

 some to be the case at Hoxne. 



The question, together with others relating to the glacial deposits, 

 will some day be settled beyond dispute by a man who has acquired 

 an insight into the subject by long experience and by approved 

 practical work in the field, and I am content to await his appearance. 



ExETEB, Nov. 10, 1892. A. J. Jukes-BrOWNE. 



OBITTJJViair. 



We regret to announce the death of Mr. Henry John Marten, 

 M.Inst.C.E., F.G.S., etc. Mr. Marten was a well-known hydraulic 

 engineer. He had been engineering adviser to the Board of Agri- 

 culture, engineer to the Severn Commissioners and to the Stafi'ord- 

 shire and Worcestershire Canal Co. So recently as October 7, he 

 gave evidence before the Royal Commission on Water Supply, on 

 the practicability of constructing storage reservoirs in the Upper 

 Thames Valley. In 1890 he read before the Geological Society a 

 paper "On some Water- worn and Pebble-worn Stones taken from 

 the Apron of the Holt-Fleet Weir on the River Severn " (Quart. 

 Journ. vol. xlvii. p. 63). Mr. Marten died November 3rd, in his 

 66th year. 



