﻿Yol. 66J] THE WESTERN END OF THE WEALD. 665 



in the smaller material (up to 2 inches in diameter); but large 

 fragments are by no means uncommon, one which I measured being 

 14 by 5 by 4 inches. A quarter of a mile farther south again, 

 but separated from the last by two valleys, a shallow and a deep 

 one, is a ridge composed of Upper Greensand and Gault, and upon 

 this rests a somewhat extensive bed of gravel (fig. 4, E), part of which 

 spreads down the southern slope of the hill. The summit of the 

 hill is above 400 feet CD., and therefore about on a level with the 

 Dippenhall gravels, while here, again, chert is abundant. 



With regard to the origin of these remarkable gravels (C, D, & 

 E) three hypotheses suggest themselves : — 



(i) That they are the product of the Farnham Eiver. 



(ii) That they have been washed down from some higher and earlier drift, 

 (iii) That they are relics of a consequent river which flowed through, and 

 gave rise to, the Crondall Pass. 



(i) There are absolutely no drifts at a corresponding level higher 

 np the Farnham Valley, and those nearer Farnham are, as we have 

 seen, entirely different in character. We must therefore suppose 

 that the latter (fig. 4, A & B) were washed down from the 

 Plateau after the rest (C, D, & E) were deposited and that all 

 other relics of this excursion of the river to the north have 

 been destroyed. But the level at which they lie is not greatly 

 higher than that of the Alice Holt Plateau, on the opposite side 

 of the valley ; and it is therefore certain that, when they were 

 laid down, the Gault was already widely exposed about a mile 

 farther south. Now, it is entirely contrary to experience that in 

 a valley mainly consisting of Gault, a longitudinal river should 

 spread laterally right across the Chalk (both Upper and Lower), and 

 on to the Eocene strata beyond. That is a very serious objection ; 

 but, even if we overlook it, and assume that, on a frozen soil, all these 

 formations were planed off to one level, we still should not obtain 

 the observed phenomena. The gravels nearer the present river- 

 bed are very poor in chert ; only on the Alice Holt Plateau do we 

 find anything like the same percentage, and even there the distribu- 

 tion is far from uniform. On the south side, which was reached 

 directly by streams from Hindhead, chert is plentiful ; but, along 

 the northern ridge of the same plateau, which was mainly supplied 

 by the longitudinal stream bringing flints from Alton, it is 

 •distinctly scarce. Therefore, assuming even that the river took the 

 extraordinary course of crossing the Chalk, and that it has only left 

 a record of that procedure at this one point, it still remains in the 

 highest degree improbable that it could have brought so large a 

 percentage of chert to the Crondall Pass as we there observe. 

 Taken together, these objections appear to me to be absolutely fatal 

 to the hypothesis under consideration. 



(ii) We have an existing and obvious source for the gravels 

 A & B in the Farnham Plateau, but nothing of the kind is to 

 "be found in the case of C, D, & E. The valleys separating the 



