﻿1851.] 



AUSTEN ON THE PLEISTOCENE PERIOD. 



131 



since, when examining the broad alluvia of the Rhine and Rhone 

 valleys, and speculating on the moving power and depths which these 

 rivers must then have had, I recorded the impression that parallel 

 conditions could only be found at present in the upper courses of the 

 great rivers of northern India, and that the range of the Alps must 

 at one time have had an elevation equal to that of the Himalayas. 



The only remaining point connected with these sub-aerial accumu- 

 lations to which I shall call attention, is that of their horizontal or 

 seemingly stratified arrangement. This character, which, though very 

 obvious at short distances, is hardly so when close, results from the 

 collection of larger blocks and angular fragments at successive levels, 

 as if the agencies, whatever they may have been, which have con- 

 curred in producing them were unequal, or greater at one time than 

 at another : from the preponderance of coarse materials in the lower 

 portions of these masses, we may also infer that they were greater at 

 the commencement of the sub-aerial conditions than towards its close. 



Of this period, so distinct in its physical features, we know some- 

 what of the vegetation and the terrestrial fauna. 



On the west of the island of Guernsey is an area occupied by peat- 

 beds and the stools of trees, and which by means of pond accumu- 

 lations are connected with the sub-aerial accumulations ; these beds 

 are the higher portions of what forms the submerged peat and forest- 

 ground of Vazon Bay. In the same island trees lie buried in the sub- 

 aerial mass : in sinking a well through these at St. Pierre, after tra- 

 versing 30 feet, the workmen reached what they supposed to be the 

 solid granite on which it rested ; the work was continued, when the ob- 

 struction was found to be a large block included in the superficial beds ; 

 beneath it was the stem of a large tree which had to be cut through. 

 St. Owen's Bay in Jersey presents the same features as that of Vazon 

 in Guernsey *. 



The contents of the sub- aerial beds of our own side of the Channel 

 long since attracted attention. Borlase notices the remains of land 

 animals, and as a proof of their great antiquity, he states that the 

 horns of the deer had become brittle, and dissolved readily in vinegar. 



In Torbay the submerged forest-ground is apparently coextensive 

 with the whole of that area, of which a continuous portion extends 

 inland ; the animal remains of these beds have not as yet been suffi- 

 ciently made known by those who have become possessed of them ; 

 their dark colour and well-preserved condition easily distinguish 

 them from the fractured and bleached specimens derived from the 

 caves and fissures. The horns of deer have from their size and ob- 

 vious nature attracted most attention. Bones of great size also occur, 

 and the Museum of Natural History of Torquay contains a fine 

 molar of an elephant, dredged up by a Brixham trawler at the en- 

 trance of the bayf. These remains are of much interest, as they 

 serve to connect the age of this submerged forest-ground and the sub- 

 aerial beds with which they are connected, with the period of the ani- 

 mals whose remains occur in the caves of the adjoining district. 



* Vide Sketch of Geology of Channel Islands, Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1840. 

 t Prof. Owen, to whom I showed the specimen, informed me that it was a 

 molar from the lower jaw of Elephas primigenius. 



