284 Rev. W. 8. Symonds on Phenomena connected with 
drifts, which contain the remains of the hippopotamus, ‘rhi- 
noceros, elephant, cave hyena, and extinct oxen and deer, 
with the deposits of the Lake epoch. They belong to a 
distinct epoch, and offer a distinct history. Since I had the 
pleasure of seeing Mr Prestwich, I have examined all the 
evidence I could collect respecting the relics found in these 
old lake silts, but I cannot obtain one well-authenticated 
specimen of the bones of the extinct mammalia from the la- 
custrine silts, excepting the horns of Bos longifrons. We 
have many bones of existing animals, such as deer, sheep, and 
ox, from the lacustrine drifts, in Worcester Museum, During . 
the cutting of the Tewkesbury Docks, the engineer, Mr Alfred 
Leader Williams, found a fine antler of red deer covered by 
upwards of 37 feet of lacustrine silt and alluvium. A jar of 
ancient pottery, which I believed to be Roman, but which I 
now think must be more ancient still, was also found by Mr 
Williams at the depth of thirty feet.* It was lying in a black 
silt, which also contained nuts and pieces of wood, and below 
which, at a depth of ten feet, was a bed of gravel. I also 
believe that the human skeleton which was disinterred at the 
depth of sixteen feet when the foundations of the Defford 
Bridge on the Avon, between Tewkesbury and Worcester, 
were laid, belongs to the Lake period. Ido not see how we 
are to avoid the conclusion that man lived in the Lake period 
in Worcestershire. - 
Mr Prestwich has convinced me that certain drifts and 
gravel beds above the Avon, Severn, and other rivers, which 
he designates as ‘ low level drifts,” are altogether antecedent 
to, and independent of, the detritus which fills up the beds of 
the former lakes. They belong to a distinct epoch, and re- 
present an entirely different water surface. Instead of dip- 
ping under or into the lacustrine deposits, in many localities 
they dip away from the old lake silts and are slightly up- 
heaved. They are, in fact, the relics of broad, and probably 
rapid rivers, of which the former channel must have been 
30 or 40 feet above the level of the silted-up lakes. 
The period of the “low-level drift” was then anterior to that 
of the Lake epoch in this part of England; and it is in these 
* This jar is in the possession of Sir Charles Lyell. 
