PART I. 

 THE PLEISTOCENE ' DEPOSITS OF CORNWALL. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Notwithstanding the excellent observations of Messrs. Boase, 

 Carne, Henvvootl, and others, which afford plentiful material for a 

 connected history of the later part of the Pleistocene period in 

 Cornwall, such an attempt has not hitherto been made. 



With the intention of supplying this want, I visited Cornwall in 

 the summer of 1876, carefully observing the coast-line as far as 

 practicable in the following districts. From Polkerris, near Par, to 

 Coverack Cove in the Lizard district ; thence over Goonhilly Downs 

 to ]\Iullion ; from Mullion to Penzance ; from St. Loy Cove to the 

 Logan Rock ; from Cape Cornwall to the Land's End ; from St. 

 Ives to Godrevy Island ; St. Agnes Beacon ; from Porth Towan (to 

 the south of Peri-an Sands) to Tintagel. A thorough survey of the 

 inland districts, with which I am unacquainted, would, doubtless, 

 furnish a very valuable addition to the inquiry, notwithstanding the 

 numerous facts accumulated, selections from which are alone given 

 in this papei', so far as they are necessary to establish the conclusions 

 embodied in the Second Part (Classification). 



The early Pleistocene history of Cornwall, like that of Devon, is 

 very obscure. The absence of any records of Boulder-clay, rocJies 

 moutonnes, or striations, gives no colour to the hypothesis that Corn- 

 wall was submerged during the Glacial epoch, or that it was invaded 

 by foreign ice. If land-ice helped to mould the contour, it must 

 have been local, and all traces must have been expunged by subse- 

 quent subaerial waste. The quartz gravels of Crousa Down and 



^ The term Pleistocene is used in an indefinite sense, as the oldest deposits cannot 

 with propriety be included under that name in its ordinary acceptation; but as, with 

 their exception, the phenomena discussed, from Raised Beaches to the present time, 

 are Pleistocene, and with them the classification is principally concerned, no better 

 titles than Pleistocene and Post-Tertiary occurred to me. — W. U., Aug. 9th, 1879. 



