Correspondence — Mr. Horace B. Woodward. 235 



regarded as forming part of the series of ancient crystalline rocks. 

 The plant-remains are identical with those found in the Old Red 

 Sandstone rocks in Caithness, Orkney, and Shetland, from which it 

 was inferred that the quartzites and shales in which the fossils are 

 imbedded must be classed with this formation. The authors also 

 described the great series of contemporaneous and intrusive igneous 

 rocks of Old Eed Sandstone age, adducing evidence in proof of the 

 great denudation which has taken place in the members of this for- 

 mation in Shetland. 



3. "On the Southerly Extension of the Hessle Boulder-clay in 

 Lincolnshire." By A. J. Jukes-Browne, Esq., B.A., F.G.S. 



The southern boundary of the Hessle Clay has not hitherto been 

 satisfactorily determined. The author traces this deposit along the 

 border of the flat fen land in South Lincolnshire, near Burgh, 

 Steeping, etc., and the east and west Fen. He concurs with Mr. 

 Searles Wood in believing the clay to be the product of shore-ice 

 along a coast-line, and that the materials were in great part derived 

 from the older " Purple Clay." He differs, however, from that 

 author as to the correlation of the Hessle series, thinking this more 

 probably older than the oldest river-gravels of the South-east of 

 England. In an appendix a deep well-section at Boston is discussed, 

 and reasons are given for assigning the greater part of the beds in 

 this to the Jurassic Clays, not to the Glacial. 



COEEESPOlsriDEUCE. 



THE MAMMOTH NOT PB.E-GLACIAL IN BRITAIN. 1 

 Sir, — Many will regret that Prof. Dawkins has lent the authority 

 of his name to the opinion that the Mammoth is pre-Glacial in Britain, 

 but perhaps few may take the trouble to point out how very 

 unsatisfactory is the evidence he brings forward (Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc, Feb. 1879). His evidence that the Mammoth is pre- 

 Glacial in the South of England rests upon the assumption that the 

 gravel beneath the Boulder-clay at Bricket Wood, between Watford 

 and St. Albans, is pre-Glacial. There is no proof that it is older than 

 the Lower Boulder-clay or Cromer Till of the Norfolk coast ; on the 

 contrary, it may be neiver. And this being the case, the evidence is of 

 no value whatever in assigning a pre-Glacial age to the animal- 

 remains found in it. 



Mr. Clement Beid pointed out in a recent number of " Nature " 

 (vol. xix. p. 122) that there was no evidence to show that any single 

 specimen of the Elephas primigenius had been obtained in situ from 

 the pre-Glacial or Forest Bed series of the Cromer coast — a conclusion 

 which only bore out the repeated statements of Mr. Gunn and others. 

 As the subject is one of great interest, perhaps Prof. Dawkins will 

 kindly state where are to be seen those specimens upon which he 

 founds his opinion that the Mammoth has been found in the Forest 

 Beds. Horace B. Woodward. 



Aylsham, Norwich. 



1 The publication of this letter has been unintentionally delayed. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



