186 Reports and Proceedings. 



Mr. Carruthers mentioned fhat allophane often fills the inflorescence of the Cycads 

 of the Yorkshire Oolite, entirely destroying the vegetahle structure, and that it also 

 occurs in clay nodules from the Coal-measures. Mr. Carruthers suggested that the 

 decomposition of vegetable matter in clays might aid in the production of the mineral. 



4. "Notes on the Peat and underlying Beds observed in the 

 construction of the Albert Dock, Hull." By J. C Hawkshaw, Esq., 

 M.A., F.G.S. 



The Albert Dock is situated on the foreshore of the Eiver Humber. 

 The excavations for the dock extended over an area of about thirty 

 acres, and they were carried down to a depth varying from eight feet 

 to 27 feet below low water of spring-tides. Beneath the more modern 

 deposits of Humber silt a bed of peat,' Hessle Clay, Hessle Sand, and 

 purple clay, were successively met with. The peat was found at the 

 west end of the Dock at the level of low water ; at the east end the 

 bed dipped so that the upper surface was found at eight feet below 

 the level of low water. In the peat were found the remains of a 

 fire, which the writer attributed to human agency. Oak-trees of 

 large size were imbedded in the peat, some of which had grown 

 where they were found, as was shown by the stools remaining with 

 the roots penetrating the Boulder-clay beneath. In one oak-tree, five 

 feet in diameter, a hole was found filled with acorns and nuts. Many 

 of the nuts were broken open at the ends, and had evidently formed 

 part of the store of a squirrel. Eemains of Coleoptera were found, 

 and one horn-core of a Bos. The excavation did not extend below 

 the upper parts of the purple clay. Some of the borings, however, 

 penetrated the chalk at a dej)th of 85 feet below low- water level, 

 passing through a bed of sand 16 feet thick below the purple clay. 

 Several thousand cubic yards of this sand were brought up into the 

 foundations by springs of water which flowed up through old bore- 

 holes. The abstraction of this sand from beneath the clay-beds 

 caused it to subside many feet. The writer thinks that analogous 

 subsidences may take place from natural causes ; for instance, where 

 large springs occur in tidal rivers. Two sections exhibited showed 

 the beds above the chalk for a distance of rather more than a mile 

 along the foreshore. The Hessle sand was shown to thin out to the 

 westward. It does not, in the writer's opinion, increase in thickness 

 in that direction, as it was shown to do in a section already published 

 in the Proceedings of the Society. 



Discussion. — The President remarked upon the singularity of the occurrence of 

 a bed of ashes at such a depth in these deposits. 



Mr. Gwyn Jeifreys referred to the President's paper on the Kelsey Hill beds, and 

 remarked on some of the Mollusca obtained by Mr. Hawkshaw. 



Mr. Boyd Dawkins mentioned the occurrence of a submarine forest on the coast of 

 Somersetshire, forming a layer of peat, beneath which was a land-surface, on which 

 the forest had grown, and in which flint flakes were found at Portlock and Watchet 

 on digging through the peat. He remarked on the depression of the coast of Somer- 

 setshire within the human period, and suggested that the forest at Hull may have 

 been contemporaneous with that of Somersetshire. 



Professor Morris inquired whether any trees or roots were found as when growing. 

 The shells obtained were estuarine. Professor Morris remarked on a submerged forest 

 near Whittlesey, with terrestrial plants and freshwater shells imbedded in the overlying 

 clay. 



The author, in reply, stated that the trees had fallen where they grew. The general 

 appearance of things led him to the belief that the fire which had destroyed part of 

 the forest was of human production. 



