OP THE N.W., MIDLAND, AND EASTERN C0T7NTIES. 181 



that this uppermost drift could only have been distributed by a 

 cause operating independently of the hills, will require to have 

 recourse to the idea of a late submergence of the land, which may 

 have been brought about by a southerly extension of the Upper- 

 Boulder-clay sea. Others may agree with the eminent local authority, 

 the Eev. W. S. Symonds, F.G.S., in believing that floods, caused by 

 the sudden melting of snow and ice on the Malvern hills, may have 

 been sufficient to scatter the rock-fragments. I have been led to 

 believe, from Mr. Symonds's observations, that Malvern-hill debris 

 may have been previously distributed, during the accumulation of 

 the high-level clays and gravels, which (from the latter consisting 

 to a great extent of Triassic pebbles) may possibly be on the horizon 

 of the somewhat similar drifts between Wolverhampton and Bridge- 

 north, which contain northern granite boulders *, and are probably 

 equivalent to the Lower Boulder- clay further north. 



Low-level Drifts South of Worcester. 



According to Murchison, Strickland, and Falconer, the following 

 would appear to be the descending order of deposits near the river 

 Severn south of Worcester : — 



1 . Coarse gravel, with blocks of Malvern-hill syenitef and northern 



granite pebbles. 



2. Estuarine sand and drift gravel, with Elej>7ias primigeniuSf 



Bliinoceros tichorhinus, reindeer, &c., and sea-sheUs, including 

 Bidla, Ampidla, and Oliva, in addition to shells now found 

 around our shores. 



3. Fluviatile deposit, with freshwater shells and Elephas antiquus, 



Hip>popotamus major, &c. 



4. Eed marl. 



No. 1 may possibly have been deposited during the northern 

 Upper-Boulder-clay submergence. No. 2 may have been deposited 

 towards the close of the first submergence, and may represent the 

 middle sand and gravel of the north. The three shells now found 

 in warm latitudes (if correctly identified) might be regarded as in- 

 dicating a mild interglacial period. In the section there is nothing 

 to correspond to the Lower Boulder-clay of the north ; but it ought 

 to be recollected that in the midland counties, and even in the north, 

 it is often represented by gravel, and in some places not represented 

 at all. The low level at which the fluviatile deposit occurs near the 

 present channel of the Severn (the estuarine shell-bed above it being 

 not more than 30 ft, higher than the river) seems to show that in 

 preglacial times the level of the river was very nearly as low as at 

 present, thus indicating that the Severn valley, with its wide 

 alluvial flats, may have been excavated in preglacial times — in this 

 respect corresponding to the northern valleys. It is at the same 



* As stated in my former paper, granite boulders were found in high-level 

 drift at Apperley Court. 



t The Eev. W. S. Symonds has elsewhere found Malvern-hill debris covering 

 up the remains of extinct Mammalia ; and the fact certainly lends support to 

 the idea of an interglacial period, during which the animals lived, succeeded by 

 a return of cold conditions, which caused their extinction. 



