Correspondence. 563 



Bowerbank's patient and generous teacliing, and his subsequent rise 

 to Dr. Bowerbank's kind introductions and encouragement. The 

 society itself may be said to owe its formation to him, for when it 

 was proposed to figure the fossils of the London clay, he asked the 

 pertinent question, " Why not figure the whole of the British fossils?" 

 The idea was seized and acted on, and the works which the Paleeon- 

 tographical Society publish annually are sufficient proof of the value 

 of the suggestion. — Land and Water, November 9, 1867. 



THE VALLEY OF THE OUSE AT BUCKINGHAM. 



To the Editor of the Geological Magazine. 



Sir, — In a paper by Mr. Searles V. Wood, junr., in the last 

 number of the Quarterly Journal of the Greological Society, there is 

 the following foot-note (p. 309) : — 



" The section of the valley at Buckingham, given in the Memoir 

 of the Geological Survey at sheet 45, appears to me quite at variance 

 with the actual structure of it. So far from there being any evidence 

 of the existence of an actual valley in this part prior to the Glacial 

 period, the mode in which the valley of the Ouse is cut through 

 the Glacial-beds shows the valley to have been wholly formed since 

 the deposition of the Glacial-clay." 



Will you allow me to call attention to a few facts which seem to 

 have escaped Mr. Wood's notice when he wrote the above ? 



The section to which Mr. Wood alludes was drawn from the 

 following evidence : — First, a quarry on the Stony Stratford-road, 

 just outside Buckingham, on the eastern side of the valley, showed 

 the following section : — 



Drift- gravel, 

 Cornbrash, 

 Great Oolite. 



Secondly, a quarry behind Buckingham Workhouse, on the opposite 

 side of the valley, showed Drift-gravel resting directly on Great 

 Oolite, without any Cornbrash between. Thirdly, at the Buckingham 

 cemetery, a little further to the west, we have a section exactly like 

 the first, namely, Drift-gravel, resting on Cornbrash, with Great 

 Oolite below. 



Now these three sections seem to me to show conclusively that, 

 before the deposition of the Drift-gravel, a valley must have run 

 between the first and third, at least, as deep as the thickness of the 

 Cornbrash. I believe the central quarry showed that the hollow 

 had also cut down into the Great Oolite ; but I have not my note- 

 book now with me, and cannot speak certainly on this point from 

 memory. These little points of evidence are so minute that no one 

 can be blamed for overlooking them ; but even if they had not been 

 forthcoming, I do not think Mr. Wood's reasoning very convincing, 

 when he argues that, because the river has cut a valley through the 

 Glacial -beds, therefore there could have been no valley there before. 



