ii PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 1 898, 



Mr, W. W, Watts proceeded to give details of some interesting- 

 geological features recently exposed at the new Sewerage Works at 

 Carshalton, Surrey, now being made by the Urban District Council, 

 to which the attention of the Society had been directed by the 

 Surveyor during the autumn recess. 



These excavations are situated at a spot which on the Geological 

 Survey map is coloured as London Clay ; and the features of the 

 ground fully justified this colouring. The excavations, however, 

 have shown that there are loamy and sandy beds of a light yellow 

 colour, some 14 or 15 feet in thickness, and apparently occupying 

 a hollow in the London Clay. At the base these sandy beds 

 become dark and clayey in some places, and include flints and 

 pebbles, while below this is the London Clay. In the dark pebbly 

 layer were found a large skull, a piece of a tusk, and a number of 

 smaller bones, which Mr. E. T. jN'ewton has determined to be a 

 piece of elephant-tusk, the skull (31 inches long) of Rhinoceros 

 antiquitatis with some of its limb-bones ; while the smaller bones 

 represent two or perhaps three horses. Although the teeth of the 

 rhinoceros are wanting, the skull is otherwise very perfect ; and, 

 bearing this in mind, as well as the fact that certain of the limb- 

 bones were also found, and that ElepTias is represented by the tusk, 

 and all three (it is said) at a depth of 14 or 15 feet, little room is 

 left for doubting that we have here at Carshalton a Pleistocene 

 deposit of a somewhat unusual character and at a spot where it was 

 not before suspected. 



Mr. Whitaeiee, who was responsible for the geological mapping 

 of this area, pointed out how the general configuration of the 

 district gave no clue to the presence of this deposit of loamy sand, 

 which occurred on a gentle slope, and that even now it was only 

 possible to mark it on the map as an oval patch round the exca- 

 vations with uncertain boundaries. The Drift shown, moreover, 

 difi'ers from that of the neighbourhood in that the latter is essentially 

 gravel, while the former is sand, Avith loamy beds, but, as a rule, 

 . not stony, so that there are no surface-indications of gravel. 



The mammalian remains are now preserved in the Museum of 

 Practical Geology, through the kindness of the District Council. 



Lieut.-Gen. McMahon, V.P.G.S., having taken the Chair, the 

 Peesident made a communication regarding deposits in North- 

 western Middlesex very similar to those above described. Some 

 years ago he described sections in Glacial Drift on the Hendon 

 plateau, exposed during sewerage-operations. More recently the 

 sewers have been carried on at lower levels between Hendon and 

 Edgware ; and numerous remains of mammoth and rhinoceros have 

 been found, resting on an eroded surface of London Clay, and 

 covered over by about 7 feet of stratified sands-and-gravels and 

 brickearth. These deposits were found to spread out for considerable 

 distances over the plain, and to be cut through also by the Silke 

 stream, a tributary of the Brent. This area has hitherto been 

 supposed to consist almost entirely of London Clay, but the sections 



