the Drifts of the Severn, Avon, Wye, and Usk. 283 
near the Haw Bridge, between Tewkesbury and Gloucester. 
The urn was open at the top, and the ashes must have been 
washed out had the urn been drifted; besides, I am assured 
by Mr Strickland of Apperley Court, who possesses this relic, 
that the urn was found perfectly upright, and had evidently 
been buried where it stood. Deerhurst Church, a little higher 
up, is known also to have been of Anglo-Saxon date, and 
stood in Saxon times much in the same position with respect 
to the Severn as at present. I therefore believe that the 
River Severn flows in much the same channel, between Wor- 
_ cester and Gloucester, as in the days of the Romans. 
- The point, however, to which I would direct attention is 
this, that all these rivers may alter their course and destroy 
and re-form their alluvia over and over again, for age after 
age, without in the slightest degree changing their courses, 
save as regards the level alluvial land. ‘The results arrived 
at by Mr Richardson, from mathematical and arithmetical 
calculations, are, that the Wye has flowed between its 
boundary of the Old Red rocks of the Ross district for more 
than eleven millions of years. I do not pretend here to enter 
into the elaborate calculations on which Mr Richardson has 
come to this determination, but I must say that I have been 
lately very much impressed with the evidence of antiquity 
furnished by the alluvial deposits of our rivers of Worcester- 
shire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire, and I do not see 
how we can deal with them in any way without allowing 
enormous periods of time. 
The Lake Period.—lIt is well known that there was a time, 
antecedent to the present configuration of land and river sur- 
face, when the Severn, Avon, and Wye flowed, as the River 
Shannon does now, through a chain of lakes of various sizes, 
and which lakes are now silted up and form the celebrated 
“holms” or river meadows. I inferred that the relics of the 
great quadrupeds found so abundantly on the banks of the 
Avon, at Bricklehampton, and Cropthorne, and at Kempsey, 
and other localities on the Severn, were disinterred from banks 
of mud, silt, and gravel, which were formed on the shores of 
the ancient lakes. It is here that I would correct the in- 
ferences that might be drawn from my correlation of these 
