﻿1851.] 



AUSTEN ON THE GUILDFORD GRAVEL BEDS. 



287 



that there must have been here also a movement of subsequent date 

 to the first accumulation of gravel along this line, inasmuch as the 

 beds on the chalk-range contain abundantly iron-stone, chert, and 

 sandstone derived from the lower greensand, and that at elevations 

 above any part of that series now. 



The detail of such considerations as these belongs to the history of 

 those changes out of which the present features of the Wealden area 

 — physical and geological — have resulted. All that I would here im- 

 press on geologists is this: — 1st, that the gravel-beds which surround 

 the Wealden represent a vast period of time ; 2nd, that during that 

 time disturbances took place which altered entirely the relation of the 

 country to the Wealden area within ; 3rd, that the inner line of gravel- 

 beds belongs mostly to a form of the surface when the present bound- 

 ing ranges or escarpments had not been raised ; and 4th, that where 

 the gravels present a conformity to existing physical features, they are 

 the re-arranged beds which have been derived from, and rest uncon- 

 formably on, the older ones. 



In all the observations which I have lately offered on the subject 

 of the superficial sands and gravels of the South of England, I have 

 restricted myself to such masses as could be referred to two definite 

 periods in past time — either to that of the sub-aerial conditions which 

 were synchronous with the occupation of this country by the large ex- 

 tinct mammalia, or that of the subsequent sub-aqueous accumulations 

 in which the rolled and fragmentary remains of this fauna have been 

 found. As I am well aware that some experienced geologists are dis- 

 posed to refer certain accumulations of gravel which occur about the 

 Wealden area to the period of its denudation, of which they represent 

 the spoil, and as beds such as are here described might seem suited to 

 support such views, it may be as well to state that remains of the 

 large mammalia have been found over the whole of the area of the 

 gravel-beds here described, and that the line of Section, fig. 3, afforded 

 a fine molar of the true Elephas primigenius* . 



The gravel-beds in the upper part of the Valley of the Wey, at and 

 above Farnham, those below Guildford at Send, and those of the 

 Valley of the Mole near Dorking and Betchworth, have all been found 

 to contain abundantly the teeth and tusks of Elephas primigenius ; 

 the molars in particular are often much waterworn. But inasmuch 

 as these accumulations seem to have a chronology of their own, it is 

 evidently desirable that the precise positions in which all animal re- 

 mains occur should be ascertained : this is a point on which unfor- 

 tunately our information is deficient : as a general rule they are met 

 with in the lower portions of the gravel-beds, Section, fig. 3 ; but 

 it is also possible that in some places the whole thickness of the gravel 

 may be referable to what is the upper and re-arranged gravel of places 

 where the series is complete : this is a point for more accuracy of 

 observation than has yet been applied to these beds. 



In the notice of the external features of the surface of the Pease- 

 marsh Valley, it was stated that it had been excavated along a central 



* Prof. Owen kindly examined this specimen and also a lower jaw (from some 

 higher beds), which he determined to belong to Bos longifrons. 



