On the Newer Pliocene Period in England. 145 



and Selsea flats, -which, in correspondence with the shingle of the 

 Isle-of- Wight beach, were then submerged about 30 or 40 feet 

 below their present level, left the great blocks found in the clay- 

 gravel of Pagham and Selsea, which was then forming, and which 

 overlies the mud-bed with Lusitaniau shells, and is itself overlain 

 by the atmospheric formation. He also showed by a line of section 

 that this gravel occupies a position several hundred feet below that 

 which the gravel of the great submergence and major glaciation oc- 

 cupies in the adjoining parts of Hampshire. 



The atmospheric formation of the minor glaciation he regarded as 

 the brick-earth with angular fragments of stone and splintered flints 

 overlying the buried cliffs and their beaches. This is the ' ; formation 

 of great submergence " (with land shells and Mammalian remains) of 

 Prestwich, and identical with the "warp" of Trimmer and " trail"' of 

 Fisher in other parts of England. The origin of this he referred to 

 an annual thawing of the upper layer of the permanently frozen land- 

 surface, such as takes place in arctic countries not occupied by land- 

 ice, such as Siberia. Owing to the subsoil being permanently frozen, 

 no water can penetrate it, so that the thawing surface-layer becomes 

 sludge from the snow-melting and rainfall of summer, and slowly 

 slides from higher to lower places, thus exposing on the higher a 

 continually renewed superficial portion of the permanently frozen 

 soil to this action, and accumulating it in the lower. In sliding, this 

 material has collected not only the bones of animals such as the 

 reindeer and mammoth which lived on this surface, but also those 

 of the hippopotamus, which did not, but had lived during the Oyrena- 

 formation stage, from superficial deposits of that stage (from which 

 also they got by derivation into the gravel of this glaciation), in 

 illustration of which he refers to Siberian rivers now receiving the 

 remains of the extinct mammoth and living reindeer alike. 



Penetratiug fissures in the rocks, this material has formed the 

 amorphous Cave-earth of the districts beyond where the moraine has 

 reached ; and the author pointed out that, stalagmite being due to 

 percolation, none could form while the subsoil was thus permanently 

 frozen, which is the reason why the Cave-earth is devoid of it, 

 though always covered by it and sometimes underlain by it, such 

 underlay probably showing that the caves where this occurs were 

 not submerged at the commencement of this minor glaciation. 



After giving various reasons which appeared to him to show that 

 the passing away of the minor glaciation took place while Lancashire 

 was still submerged up to an elevation of from 20 to 30 feet, but when 

 the east and south of England was at a somewhat higher level than 

 at present, he described a bed of flattened stones which cover all 

 anterior beds alike in the limestone districts of the south of Lincoln- 

 shire, and some gravel with flattened fragments of hard chalk in 

 North Lincolnshire and Holderness, which appear to him to indicate 

 a flooding of the country after the termination of this glaciation. 

 The author then offered some remarks on the coexistence of arboreal 

 vegetation with the land-ice of the first or great glaciation at the 



Phil Mag. S. 5. Vol. 14. No. $6. Aug. 1882. L 



