156 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



4. " Notes on the Peat and underlying Beds observed in the 

 construction of the Albert Dock, Hull." By J. C. Hawkshaw, Esq., 

 M.A., E.G.S. 



The Albert Dock is situated on the foreshore of the river Humber. 

 The excavations for the dock extended over an area of about thirty 

 acres, and they were carried down to a depth varying from 8 feet to 

 27 feet below low water of spring tides. Beneath the more modern 

 deposits of Humber silt a bed of peat, Hessle Clay, Hessle Sand, and 

 purple clay were successively met with. The peat was found at the 

 west end of the dock at the level of low water ; at the east end the 

 bed dipped so that the upper surface was found at 8 feet below the 

 level of low water. In the peat were found the remains of a fire, 

 which the writer attributed to human agency. Oak-trees of large 

 size were imbedded in the peat, some of which had grown where 

 they were found, as was shown by the stocks remaining with the 

 roots penetrating the Boulder-clay beneath. In one oak-tree, 5 feet 

 in diameter, a hole was found filled with acorns and nuts. Many 

 of the nuts were broken open at the ends, and had evidently formed 

 part of the store of a squirrel. Remains of Coleoptera were found, 

 and one horn- core of a Bos. The excavation did not extend below 

 the upper parts of the purple clay. Some of the borings, however, 

 penetrated the chalk at a depth of 85 feet below low-water level, 

 passing through a bed of sand 16 feet thick below the purple clay. 

 Several thousand cubic yards of this sand were brought up into the 

 foundations by springs of water which flowed up through old bore- 

 holes. The abstraction of this sand from beneath the clay-bed 

 caused it to subside many feet. The writer thinks that analogous 

 subsidences may take place from natural causes — for instance, where 

 large springs occur in tidal rivers. Two sections exhibited showed 

 the beds above the chalk for a distance of rather more than a mile 

 along the foreshore. The Hessle sand was shown to thin out to the 

 westward. It does not, in the writer's opinion, increase in thickness 

 in that direction, as it was shown to do in a section already published 

 in the Proceedings of the Society. 



XIX. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON THE INFLUENCE OF A COVERING OF SNOW ON CLIMATE. BY 

 A. AVOJEIKOF, MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN GEOGRA- 

 PHICAL SOCIETY. 



St- Petersburg, February 20, 18/1. 

 HPHE influence of a layer of snow resting on the earth's surface in 

 ■*■ the colder portions of the earth during winter has, to my know- 

 ledge, never been considered in its general bearing on the climate 

 and the conditions of the population living in these countries. 



The first and most apparent influence of snow is the protection 

 it affords to our crops from the cold of winter. Where the snow- 

 mantle appears regularly, winter crops are always sure, be the 

 cold ever so intense. In the steppes of South and East Russia , 



