SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS. 221 



The relationship of this clay to the raised beaches I have 

 not jet had an opportunity of trying to work out. 



On the low ground of St. Helier beds of peat and blue 

 clay lie on the yellow clay. Peat beds, with trunks of trees, 

 " submarine forests," are also found on our shores, exposed at 

 low water, or deep beneath the sand.* These beds, like others 

 of the same kind in Guernsey and on the coasts of the British 

 Islands and northern and north-western Europe, have yielded 

 Neolithic pottery and implements and remains of Bos lon~ 

 gifrons. They are the contemporaries, or indeed form part 

 of the peat beds of the European coasts, and were formed 

 when the land stood at a higher level, and extended further sea- 

 ward. One or two observations, if they are correct, would seem 

 to show that there may be some peat beds older, or that some of 

 the clay may be more recent than we should otherwise be dis- 

 posed to believe. For example, Austenf states that " In the 

 same island (Guernsey) trees he in the sub-a3rial mass. J In 

 sinking a well through that at St. Pierre, after traversing 

 30 feet, the workmen reached what they supposed to be the 

 solid granite on which it rested. The work was continued, 

 when the obstruction was found to be a large block included 

 in the superficial beds ; beneath it was the stem of a large 

 tree which had to be cut through." Also, in making the 

 excavation for the New Markets at St. Helier, yellow clay 

 with angular blocks was found to cover beds of peaty mould, 

 blue sandy clay and peat. 



It was to be expected that the quarternary deposits of 

 Jersey and Guernsey would resemble each other more or less 

 closely, but these beds have also what appear to be their 

 equivalents all along the coasts of the Channel, and often at a 

 considerable distance inland both in France and England. 

 On the south coast of England there are raised beaches over- 

 laid by a deposit resembling or analogous to our yellow clay 

 with rock fragments — the " head " of various geologists, and 

 the " rubble drift " of Prestwich, who has given us the latest 

 and most detailed description of it.§ Prestwich has also 



* Peacock : " Sinkings of Land." 



Le Cornu: "Recueil des Matures Historiques touchant les evanhissement de 

 la Mer, &c." Bull. Ann. Soc. Jersiaise, 1883. 



Noury : "Forets Sons-marines." Compte Rendu du Congres Scientiflque Inter- 

 nationale des Catholiques, 1891. 



Dunlop : " On some Jersey Peat Beds." Bull. Ann. Soc. Jersiaise, 1896. 



t "On the Superficial Accumulation of the Coasts of the English Channel." 

 Quarterly Journal Geological Society, Vol. VII., p. 131. 



X The yellow clay, which he believed to be the result of sub-serial disintegration. 



§ " On the Raised Beaches and Head or Rubble Drift of the South of England." 

 Quarterly Journal Geological Society, May, 1892. 



