470 Notices of Memoirs — Papers read at British Association. 



At one time it was believed that the crescentio moraines of York 

 and Escrick represented the greatest extension of the Teesdale ice^ 

 Now, the driftless area to the south of York notwithstanding, it is 

 admitted that the ice reached as far as Barnsley and Doncaster ; the 

 comparative absence of drift immediately to the south of those places 

 cannot, therefore, have any value as evidence, in the face of the fact 

 that Chalky Boulder-clay sets in again in great force still further to 

 the south. The enormous area covered by the moraine of the Great 

 Eastern Glacier, 10,000 square miles in extent, is inconsistent with 

 the view that it can have been wholly due to ice crossing the Wolds 

 at the two places named. We seem, therefore, driven to admit the 

 existence of a great ice-stream continuous from the mouth of the 

 Tees to the Fenland, and from the Peunines to the Yorkshire 

 moorlands and the Wolds. 



The study of the glacial deposits of the East of England does not 

 appear to support the view that mild interglacial conditions obtained 

 at any time in that region between the deposition of the Cromer Till 

 and the ' cannon-shot ' gravels which overlie the Chalky Boulder-clay. 



II. — Lake Oxford and the Goring Gap. By F. W. Harmbr, F.G.S. 



DEEP borings at Sandy, Newport, and Hitchin, and further west 

 at Stony Stratford, reveal the existence of drift-filled valleys, 

 extending in one case to a depth of 140 feet below sea-level, which 

 were probably connected with that of a pre-glacial river running in 

 a north-easterly direction towards the North Sea. Similar deep 

 borings at Boston, Fossdyke, and Long Sutton may represent the 

 mouth or the seaward extension of such a valley. 



As far as the Midland Counties are concerned, the gorge at Goring 

 is unique. At no point between Newmarket, in Suffolk, and 

 Bland ford, in Dorset, in the one case, or between Lincoln and 

 Brad ford-on- Avon on the other, have the Cretaceous or Oolitic ranges 

 been cut down to the base-level of the plains, nor does water run 

 through them from one side to the other. Cases similar to that of 

 Goring occur, however, at three of the places named, as well as at 

 Ancaster, and at Ironbridge, in Shropshire. All these are of 

 a distinct type from the dip-slope valleys of the Oolitic and 

 Cretaceous ridges, and they must have originated in a different 

 manner. They have certain striking features in common. Not only 

 do they cut continuously through the ridges, at right angles to the 

 natural drainage of the plains, but they form narrow, sharply cut, 

 U-shaped gorges, having an extremely modern appearance, as 

 distinguished from the older-looking, wider, and more gradually 

 shelving basins of the dip-slope rivers. They are invariably 

 accompanied by lake-like depressions, lower than the general level 

 of the plains, opening into trumpet-mouthed gorges, through which 

 the former are drained. 



Dealing first with the gorges at Lincoln and Ancaster, the effect 

 of the advance of the Vale of York glacier to Barnsley and Doncaster, 

 and the obstruction of the gap separating the Yorkshire from the 



