TALLEY-GRAVELS ABOUT EEADING. 589 



In the same field as that iu which the gravel occurs, but at a 

 lower level, about 144 feet above the sea- level, a very good section 

 was exposed in digging a foundation. It appeared to indicate 

 that, at the later period of the deposition of this lower-level gravel, 

 somewhat similar energetic denuding agencies were at work in the 

 valley. The section has since been povered up. The buff sand 

 occurred very irregularly. The pebbles of Chalk in the chalky gravel 

 below were flat and covered with cracks, somewhat suggestive of the 

 action of frost. Some fragments of mammalian bone were obtained 

 from this opening ; one of them is referable to the Mammoth. 



2. Norcot Brickyard. 



At this place, about three-quarters of a mile westward of the 

 above-mentioned locality, there is a section of a gravel at a higher 

 level than that in the Tilehurst Road, namely about 288 to 294 feet 

 above sea- level. At present there is a thickness of about 6 feet of it 

 overlying the lower part of the London Clay and the Woolwich-and- 

 Eeading beds at this place. It is evenly bedded, but the flints are 

 in much smaller proportion than in any other gravel in the district. 

 The pebbles and boulders of quartz, quartzite, &c., are numerous, 

 and there are boulders of various igneous rocks, a kind resembling 

 diorite deeply weathered being common, and occurring in rounded 

 masses of considerable size. 



No trace of Man or any other mammal has been found here. 



Such a deposit as this would approach more nearly in point of 

 date, probably, to the era of the wearing away of the Triassic coast- 

 line of Warwickshire &c. 



The gravel at the Tilehurst Road section (page 585) may have 

 been derived to a small extent from such a gravel as this. 



As this gravel comes into the valley as far as to about 288 feet above 

 the sea-level, I have taken it as a sort of datum-line for the purpose 

 of comparison. As it ranges over the higher ground of the Tile- 

 hurst Tertiary outlier to 340 feet above the sea-level it has the 

 character of a plateau-gravel, and becomes very variable in its 

 composition, consisting in places of finely comminuted material 

 and layers of clayey or sandy loam of considerable thickness. 



3. Bedlands, Beading. 



Crossing over the Kennet we come to a sheet of gravel south of 

 the Thames and Kennet, near the point of junction of the latter. 

 The ground is now mostly built over, but the section seen in a large 

 pit has been fully described by Mr. E. B. Poulton*. It showed a 

 considerable amount of local disturbance of the beds beneath the 

 gravel. The level is low, being 156 feet above sea-level, and 40 feet 

 above the surface of the Kennet. In gravel taken from this pit I 

 found the first flint implement discovered in this district. By 

 further search I obtained a miscellaneous collection of about a dozen 

 implements and only two flakes. These varied in their types, and 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. See. vol. xxxvi. 1880, pp. £96-306. 



2u2 



