PROCKUDINGS OV XnE UKOLOGICAL SOCIETY. T73 



couutios. The Author considers the fauna of the rorthmd Bill 

 shell-beds to indicate the further opening- of the Channel subsequent 

 to the formation of the Severn Straits, and believes that this fauna 

 represents the deposits wanting between the Selsey mud-deposits 

 and the erratic blocks which, according to liim, overlie the mud ; 

 these Portland shells indicate an intermediate temperature " rather 

 southern than northern " according to Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys. 



In conclusion, details concerning still newer beds are given, and 

 lists of fossils found therein ; and the Author observes that there is 

 no evidence to show when the English Channel finally opened up, 

 beyond the suggestion of Mr. Godwin- Austen that, if the Sangatte 

 beds and the Coombe Kock are of the same period, it must have taken 

 place after their formation. 



Discussion. 



Mr. Etheridge was well aware of the work Mr. A. Bell had done 

 and was still doing relative to the Pliocene and post-Pliocene 

 deposits of Britain, more especially the distribution of the mollusca 

 along the East and South coasts of England and Eastern Ireland. 

 The tables prepared by Mr. Bell will be found to be of considerable 

 value, those relating to Ireland having more than ordinary interest 

 through being for the first time presented in correlation with the 

 English deposits. The four grants from the British Association for 

 the years 1887 to 1889 inclusive were devoted to a re-investigation 

 of the "Manure Gravels" of the S.E. of Ireland. The Reports 

 appear for each year in their respective volumes, and the specimens 

 oTotainod by Mr. Bell are placed in the J^ational Collection, British 

 Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington. Mr. Etheridge 

 believed that the paper by Mr. Bell would be of value to all who 

 are investigating the later phases in the history of the post-Pliocene 

 deposits of the British Islands. 



Mr. Clement IIeid, during the Drift Survey of the Sussex coast, 

 had found that the large erratics of Selsey and Pagham usually lay 

 at the base of the Coombe Bock, resting directly on Eocene or Cre- 

 taceous strata. He had succeeded, however, in tracing them to a 

 lower horizon, having found blocks at the base of the marine deposit 

 described by Mr. Bell ; he therefore could not agree with the Author 

 in considering the transport of the erratics to be of later date than 

 the deposition of the clays with southern shells ; the evidence seems 

 to point to an earlier period of floating ice, then to a warmer sea, 

 and afterwards to a colder period during which the Coombe Bock 

 was formed. The freshwater marls and the Scrohicularia- clmys 

 were probably of much later date. 



Prof. Hull desired to know from Mr. Etheridge whether the 

 comparison of the shells from the Wexford gravels with those of the 

 Crag deposits led him to consider the former as being of Pliocene 

 age, as his own observations of the stratigraphical relations of the 

 Wexford gravels had led him to the conclusion that they were of 



