On a Section at Cowley, 031 



arctica and J///<7 truncata are less enmmon, indicating ihat some of 

 the older moraines are of Tleistocene age. The author concludes 

 that volcanic activity did not pause in Iceland during the Gbicial 

 Period, hut that it was esi)ecially active at the beginning and the 

 close of glaciation, building up bulky hills of slags and ashes, some 

 of ^vhich have survived the Glacial Period as volcanoes, wliile others 

 have become extinct. Volcanic activity had died out in Britain at 

 this time, and hence the palagonite formation is unrepresented 

 in that country. 



May 13th.— Edwin Tulley IS'ewton, Esq., F.R.S., 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 

 The following communications were read : — 



1. ' On some Disturbances in the Chalk near Royston (Hert- 

 fordshire).' By Horace Bolingbroke Woodward, Esq., E.R.S., F.G.S. 



A ' line of tlexure ' is marked on the Geological-Survey map from 

 Thcrfield, south-west of Royston, in Hertfordshire, to near Heydon 

 in Cambridgeshire, a curved line a little below the crest of the 

 Upper Chalk-escarpment. The author in 1902 found evidence 

 wliich satisfied him that the disturbances, })reviously supposed to be 

 an anticline, were due to Glacial action, a view confirmed during 

 the present year. Four sections are described : Great Chishall, 

 Pinner's Cross, the Limekiln south-west of jN^ewseU's Park and north 

 of i^arkway, and north of Reed. The disturbed Chalk near Royston, 

 with its fractured and displaced flints, occurs in conjunction with 

 Boulder-Clay, and the latter ib found beneath a considerable thick- 

 ness of di.iturbed Chalk. This is compared with similar phenomena 

 near Trimingham, and at Litcham in Western Norfolk. ^Yhile 

 Boulder Clay occurs along the high ground bounding the disturbed 

 area to the south, the vale and undulating downs immediately to 

 the north are devoid of this Glacial Drift. The facts were to be 

 explained, on the land-ice theory, if the ice were at first welded to 

 the rubbly surface-strata in regions north of the escarpment, and, 

 when movement set in, there were overthrusts of debris-laden ice, 

 and upper layers of ice weie rent asunder from and moved over 

 lower ones ; while to the thrust or long-continued pressure of ice 

 along shear-planes at the higher levels may be attributed the belt 

 of disturbed strata. Certain patches of esker-lil<e gravel in Ward- 

 ington Bottom might be explained by streams due to the melting 

 of the ice banked up against the scarp ; and we might go some way 

 with Sedgwick in believing that the outlines of the combes ' do not 

 appear to have been produced by a long-continued and slow process 

 of erosion ; but rather to have been cleanly swept out by rapidly- 

 descending water- floods.' 



2. ' On a Section at Cowley, near Cheltenham, and its Bearing 

 upon the Interpretation of the Bajocian Denudation.' By Linsdall 

 Richardson, Esq., E.G.S. 



According to Mr. Buckman's map, published in 1901, the Uj)per 

 2\'f'/oitia-Gnl should have been seen at this spot to lest directly, 



