20 



PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



The section exposed near the Freshford Railway-station from which the Musk Sheep 

 were obtained, presents a lenticular mass of gravel consisting of waterworn pebbles of 

 Mountain-limestone, flint, chert, Oolite, hornstone, quartzite, Old Red Sandstone and fossil 

 shells from the adjacent beds ; resting on the Lower Oolite limestones at the bottom, are a 



o -h- 



65 feet above Avon. 



4. Red loam 



3. Oolitic wash . 



2. Clay with flints 



1. Fine gravel with Mammals 



25 feet above Avon. 



RAILWAY 

 _i i 1_ 



5 6 

 1 

 4 10 

 8 



y^th inch to 1 foot. 



few big bonlders, and the pebbles are larger there than in the upper or middle part. The 

 whole bed is highly confused, and presents none of the sorting action which would be the 

 result of pebbles transported by a river flowing under temperate conditions. It could 

 indeed only have been deposited by an ice-burdened river, under severe climatal 

 conditions. 



The list of animals derived from it leads to the same conclusion ; for two out of the 

 five, the Reindeer and the Musk Sheep, 1 are found now only under an arctic climate, and 

 all the species occur in the frozen cliff in Eschscholtz Bay. I have not the slightest 

 doubt that the fluviatile ossiferous deposits in both these localities were formed 

 under similar conditions, with this difference only, that the climatal change has only 

 advanced so far in Kotzebue Sound as to gradually melt the ice cliffs, and thus to cause 

 the coast-line mapped by Admiral Kotzebue to become lower, and in every respect much 

 changed during the last eighty years, while in Somersetshire the arctic conditions have 

 entirely passed away. 



The preceding section shows the exact relation of the gravel to the beds above, which 

 are probably rain-wash of different ages. They all abut against the oolitic limestone, 

 which appears at the surface at a slight distance above the cutting. 2 



1 Compare Beechey Voyage, Appendix by Dr. Buckland, with 'Zool. H. M. S. Herald,' p. 1 — 8. 



2 For the heights which prove that the gravel belongs to the low-level series of Mr. Prestwich, 

 F.R.S., I am indebted to the Rev. H. H. Winwood. 



