﻿26 DEEP CHAN^'EL OF DRIFT AT HITCHIN. [Feb. IQOS^ 



filled with Drift in East Anglia. He added that, in the coarse 

 gravelly Drift at High Down, north of Hitchin, there were pebbles 

 or rolled lumps of Chalky Boulder-Clay. 



Mr. A. S. KEN]!fAED expressed the opinion that, if this deep 

 channel were part of a river-system, then this system must have 

 extended over the East of England, and that where it entered the 

 sea the channel must have been at least 200 feet below the present 

 sea-level ; but nowhere round the coast was there any evidence of 

 so deep a channel. Moreover, all the buried channels in the East 

 and South-East of England were obvioush' much later than the 

 Glacial Epoch. In his opinion, it would probably be found that 

 earth-movements had much to do with the present position of the 

 channel. 



The Author said that he could reply but little to the remarks of 

 Mr. Reid, but thought that it was unnecessary to imagine water 

 running up hill in order to account for the erosion of the Hitchin 

 Valley. He believed that the valley now filled with Drift existed 

 in pre-Glacial times with its drainage flowing to the north ; but he 

 thought it possible that, when the valley was dammed up in Glacial 

 times, water might have found its way southwards through the 

 Stevenage Gap. If ice had played no part in the fiDing-up of 

 the valley, how were the ice-scratched stones on the hills south 

 and south-east of Hitchin to be accounted for ? He believed that 

 the drainage of the old valley was connected with a system which 

 followed the course of the Ouse, but which like the Hitchin Yalley 

 was now filled with Drift ; and he drew attention to the fact that 

 borings between Biggleswade and Sandy yielded evidence of a great 

 thickness of Drift in the Ouse Yalley. That old river-courses now 

 filled with Drift or Boulder-Clay existed below the present sea-level 

 was shown in the case of the Humber. 



