1876.] GEOLOGY. 3^! 



I presume that this position may safely be attributed to the 

 differential movement of parts of the red clay as it subsided 

 very slowly from the dissolution of the underlying chalk ; so 

 that the flints arrange themselves in the lines of least resist- 

 ance. The similar but less strongly marked arrangement of 

 the stones in the drift near Southampton makes me suspect 

 that it also must have slowly subsided : and the notion has 

 crossed my mind that during the commencement and height 

 of the glacial period great beds of frozen snow accumulated 

 over the south of England, and that, during the summer, 

 gravel and stones were washed from the higher land over its 

 surface, and in superficial channels. The larger streams may 

 have cut right through the frozen snow, and deposited gravel 

 in lines at the bottom. But on each succeeding autumn, 

 when the running water failed, I imagine that the lines of 

 drainage would have been filled up by blown snow afterwards 

 congealed, and that, owing to great surface accumulations of 

 snow, it would be a mere chance whether the drainage, to- 

 gether with gravel and sand, would follow the same lines dur- 

 ing the next summer. Thus, as I apprehend, alternate layers 

 of frozen snow and drift, in sheets and lines, would ultimate- 

 ly have covered the country to a great thickness, with lines 

 of drift probably deposited in various directions at the bot- 

 tom by the larger streams. As the climate became warmer, 

 the lower beds of frozen snow would have melted with ex- 

 treme slowness, and the many irregular beds of interstrati- 

 fied drift would have sunk down with equal slowness ; and 

 during this movement the elongated pebbles would have ar- 

 ranged themselves more or less vertically. The drift would 

 also have been deposited almost irrespective of the outline 

 of the underlying land. When I viewed the country I could 

 not persuade myself that any flood, however great, could 

 have deposited such coarse gravel over the almost level 

 platforms between the valleys. My view differs from that of 

 Hoist, p. 415 [' Great Ice Age '], of which I had never heard, 

 as his relates to channels cut through glaciers, and mine to 

 beds of drift interstratified with frozen snow where no gla- 



