THE PLIOCENE BEDS OF ST. EKTH. 215 



DlSCtTSSION". 



The Peesident said that no discovery which had heen made of late 

 years had proved so interesting as that at 8t, Erth. It was cause 

 for congratulation that the work begun by Mr. S. V. AVood and Dr. 

 Gwyn Jeffreys had been taken up by such competent investigators 

 as the authors of the paper. 



Dr. AYooDWARD regretted the absence of Mr. Bell. He had come 

 to the conclusion also that these fossils resembled Subapennine 

 forms. The Poraminifera had been recognized by Prof. Rupert Jones 

 as Mediterranean in their character. 



Mr, Ussher noticed the similarity of beds seen in sections on the 

 flanks of Bt. Agnes Beacon to those at St. Erth. When he examined 

 these beds no fossils had been found, and he would much like to 

 know if further search had been made. He inquired what was the 

 position of the St.-Erth deposits, as the presence of a "head" 

 showed the probable existence of high ground, as at St. Agnes, talus 

 from which had protected soft beds: 



Mr. Mare said Mr. Keeping had made a good collection from 

 this locality. He further remarked that it is impossible to argue as 

 to the occurrence in Pliocene times of a barrier over what is now 

 the south of England by an appeal to present physical conditions, 

 although the authors had successfully done this by fossil evidence. 



Mr. Collins inquired why the "head" should be called a glacial 

 deposit. He had never found scratched stones in it or any fragments 

 of rock transported from a distance. 



Dr. HiNDE said that the detached spicules were those of Calci- 

 sponges, until recently suj^posed to be unpreservable in the fossil 

 state. It was difficult to determine species from them ; but, so far 

 as he could make out, they belonged to species which are now found 

 on the coasts of the Channel Islands. 



Prof. Boyd Dawkins said he agreed with the conclusions gene- 

 rally. The existence of a barrier across the Atlantic in Eocene and 

 Miocene times was, as he had pointed out in ' Early Man,' proved by 

 the distribution of plants and animals. At the close of the Miocene 

 age a great geographical change took place, and it was interesting to 

 find evidence that this barrier was not broken through. A connexion 

 with the Mediterranean across France was also very probable. 



Mr. Etheridge said he had seen a part of Mr. Kendall's paper 

 and thought his arguments feasible. 



Mr. Kendall, in reply, said he had been unable to examine the 

 beds at St. Agnes, but hoped to do so. The configuration of the 

 country is that behind the vicarage there rises a considerable eleva- 

 tion — St. Erth's Hill — whence the " head " may have been derived. 

 It was Mr. S. V. Wood who identified this head with his " warp." 

 He had introduced the question of the mode of upheaval of the beds 

 merely as bearing upon the interesting speculations of E. Forbes 

 relating to the western extension of the continent to the Azores, which 

 was, he remarked, supported by the evidence of the land and littoral 

 fauna. He added some evidence of Foraminifera. 



