94 ME. A. C. IflCHOLSON OIT HIGH-LEVJEL 



be exposed to the sea by the submergence of these hills. The good 

 state of preservation of the abundant Lias fossils ^ is another reason 

 that makes me hesitate to accept any of the associated Pleistocene 

 species as contemporaneous with the gravel. If Lias fossils can be 

 carried for considerable distances up-hill without injury, the same 

 mode of transport will account for the presence of the newer fauna. 



" Whatever may be one's opinion as to the contemporaneous or 

 derivative origin of the fossils, Mr. ^Nicholson's careful record of the 

 sections, and his collection of boulders and shells, will provide valuable 

 material for future work. I hope he will be able to add still further 

 to our knowledge of this interesting deposit." 



Dr. Hicks wished to know the position in the section where the 

 Mammoth tusk was found, as it was clear to him that the find was 

 not only an important one, but that it would have a direct bearing 

 on the question of the age of the remains found by him under a drift 

 containing similar shells at the entrance to the Cae-Gwyn Cave in 

 the Yale of Clwyd. 



Prof. Hull regarded this communication as of very high interest, 

 as corroborative evidence of the submergence of the centre of the 

 British Isles afforded by the Wicklow shell-beds and those of Moel 

 Tryfaen and the Macclesfield Hills. The shells were in a remarkable 

 state of preservation, and appeared to have lived in a sea traversed 

 by currents and containing rafts of ice, or small icebergs, which had 

 deposited the boulders amongst the beds of sand, as described by 

 Mr. Nicholson. 



Mr. Shone drew attention to the somewhat remarkable fact that, 

 both in Great Britain and Ireland, the shell-bearing High-Level 

 Glacial Sands and Gravels have as yet been found only upon the 

 outskirts of the mountainous areas. This Nvould appear to suggest 

 that these areas, in their more central portions, were covered with 

 ice at the time the fossiliferous High-Level Glacial Sands and Gravels 

 were being accumulated. 



Prof. Blake enquired what relation the deposits described might 

 have to the great terminal moraine described by Prof. Carvill Lewis, 

 which, as he drew it, did not pass far from the spot. The details of 

 the stratification, like those of Moel Tryfaen, seemed indicative of 

 melting from ice. 



The President thought that the Author, by the careful collection 

 of his facts, and the avoidance of theory regarding them, had pro- 

 vided valuable additional material for the discussion of the vexed 

 question of the extent of the Glacial submergence. The deposit 

 described in the paper had been first brought to the President's 

 notice by a late Pellow of the Society, Mr. E. S. Wyld, Jun., who 

 sent him some of the shells. He urged Mr. Wyld, who was the 

 resident engineer of the Liverpool Waterworks near Oswestry, to 

 collect the shells and write a paper on the subject for the Society ; 

 but death removed him before he had time to carry out this 

 proposal. 



" ^ The Lias fossils are not abundant, but very rare. — A. 0. N., January 12, 

 1892. 



