part 1] SANDS AND GKAYELS AT LITTLE HEATH. 35 



As this Glacial deposit in the adjacent undisturbed portions of 

 the pit has an average depth of only 2 feet, and in some parts of 

 the Common disappears altogether ; and as, in other places, it is 

 found in greater thickness even than in these pockets, it is obvious 

 that it has suffered considerable erosion. 



Other Glacial beds. — Underlying the pebbly clay on the 

 west side of the pit is a disturbed mass of sands and clay of a 

 somewhat miscellaneous character. A good deal of the upper part 

 consists of coarse sand with occasional bleached Reading pebbles, 

 showing signs of stratification, side by side with pockets of soft 

 clean sand, probably introduced as frozen erratics. The pebbles 

 are mostly vertical, and some, when removed, are found to have 

 been crushed under pressure. The thickness varies from 4 to 6 feet. 

 Beneath this is an unstratified sandy clay of a dull-grey colour, 

 profusely pitted with black markings. This is from 2 to 4 feet 

 thick, and rests in turn upon a considerable depth of soft, fine, 

 mottled white and brown sands (similar in texture to those above 

 the cla} r , but showing more persistent signs of stratification), the 

 layers of which dip sharply eastwards. This deposit also con- 

 tains pebbles with lenticles and patches of mixed material, and 

 .altogether suggests an englacial origin (see PL III). These lower 

 Glacial beds occur only on the west side of the pit, and are 

 evidently not persistent. At first sight, they appear to be faulted 

 .against the stratified loamy sand and gravel, with a clear and almost 

 vertical junction on the south, and a more highly-inclined junction 

 on the north. In reality, however, they form a wedge which has 

 probably been introduced as the. result of ice-pressure. The 

 ^southern fracture can he traced westwards for some distance, thence 

 bending round towards the south-west, and it is from a westerly 

 •direction that the pressure apparently came. The vertical junction 

 was traced to a depth of about 20 feet, below which the workings 

 in this part of the pit were discontinued. 



At the eastern end of the wedge, the beds against which it had 

 been forced showed signs of considerable disturbance, 



We have here no deposits corresponding to the stratified Glacial 

 .sands and gravels which are so extensively developed at Bedmond, 

 about 5 miles away to the south-east, and which contain a large 

 percentage of rocks foreign to the district. 



No. 4. The stratified loamy sand. — Beneath the Glacial 

 deposits is a well-bedded, dark reddish-brown, mottled, loamy 

 sand, the mottling being due partly to the abstraction of the 

 colouring-matter by root-action, and partly to thin lenticular 

 patches of pale-gre} r clay or sand. The entire deposit is banded 

 with very fine lines or partings of the grey clay. Some of the 

 partings are built up of thin detached flakes, occasionally rounded 

 -at the edges as if by water-action ; others are ripple-marked, and 

 others again are covered by sun-cracks and apparent rain-spots, 

 suggesting that each separate layer became exposed to the air after 



d2 



