S. V. Wood — Origin of the Loess. 341 



in any recognizable quantity to certain spots, such as the hollov/s 

 presented by the buried cliffs of the south coast, and onl}'- thinly, 

 and intermittently distributed elsewhere. 



In England, where this formation has resulted mainly from the 

 agency in question during the long duration of the major glaciation, 

 and so covers the chalk which formed islands above the line of 

 maximum submergence, it begins at the point where the Chalky-clay 

 ceases, the land-ice of which that clay is the moraine having either 

 (as is the case with the Chalk-wold of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire,) 

 enveloped the chalk throughout the major glaciation, or (as is the 

 case with the highest chalk summits near Royston and Baldock,) 

 advanced over it during the emergence, and so ground off this 

 material and covered the chalk with that moraine in lieu. 



Now the Loess of Continental countries appears to me to have 

 originated in this way, and for the most part to belong to that por- 

 tion of the formation which accumulated during the prolonged rigour 

 of the major glaciation. 



So much of it as is represented by the " Limon Hesbayen," which 

 wraps all Southern Belgium as well as a part of Northern France, 

 sets in at the line where the Campinian sand ceases, and covers 

 what I consider to have been land during the Glacial period or 

 during part of it. This sand, on the contrary, I have in the first 

 part of the memoir already mentioned (Quart. Journ. of the Geol. 

 Soc. for 1880, page 477) referred to the sea which by the great 

 westerly and southerly depression of England during the major 

 glaciation extended over this country generally, from the eastern 

 side of it, to which during the Crag it had been confined, so as to 

 engulph England to a depth which increased westwards to near 

 1400 feet in North Wales, and southwards to near 700 feet in Hamp- 

 shire. The part of least depression, and where probably this did 

 not reach 300 feet, was North-east Suffolk and East Norfolk ; and 

 as this depression diminished still more towards Belgium, the sea 

 shoaled more and more in that direction, until the shore of it is 

 marked by the line where the Campinian sand terminates, and the 

 Limon Hesbayen sets in. The region occupied by this sand appears 

 to me to represent a flat and shallow part of the bottom of this sea, 

 being that which extended along the shore of the land at the time 

 which is represented by the Limon Hesbayen. This flat bottom as 

 it became land during the slow recession of the sea, while the more 

 deeply engulphed region of England was emerging, also became 

 covered with an Eolian formation of Dunes raised by the wind as 

 the sea receded from the sand of the shore-line as this gradually ad- 

 vanced from the recession of the sea; for the Campinian sand 

 appears to lose its Eolian character downwards, and to pass at bot- 

 tom into gravel and shingle.* The limit of the Limon Hesbayen in 

 France similarly, I think, marks the continuation of this shore line ; 

 for though the evidences of this submergence have mostly been 

 removed in Northern France, it is hardly conceivable that the sub- 



1 Van den Broek, and Cogels, Ann. Soc. Malacologique de Beige, vol. xii. and xiv. 



