MEETINGS. 253 



necessary slides of local rocks. We also acknowledge that 

 many questions, such as the origin of the gneiss, the mode 

 of accumulation of the superficial deposits, &c, still remain 

 undetermined, but these questions hardly fall within our 

 province, which is rather to accumulate facts, leaving it to 

 others to draw therefrom such inferences as those facts seem 

 to warrant. 



SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS. 



1. — Gravees. 



The excavations for drains near Melrose and in 

 Rocquettes Lane have shown the presence of pockets 

 containing deposits of yellow loamy clay. 



2. — Vrangue Brickfield. 



New sections are being continually exposed in the process 

 of working the pits. The upper pit was visited in November, 

 1898, when the half of a large pebble or small boulder of 

 diorite, measuring about 8 by 4 inches in cross section, was 

 seen embedded in the clay about 8 or 9 feet from the surface. 

 The upper 6 feet of this clay form a bed containing numerous 

 pebbles, with angular pieces, and on the whole resembling 

 head. A well defined horizontal line separates this bed from 

 the underlying clay in which the boulder above referred to 

 was embedded at a depth of about 2 feet below the line. 

 This underlying clay reaches a thickness in one place of 10 

 feet. It is of a more homogeneous nature than the rubbly 

 bed above, and has all the appearance of a natural and 

 undisturbed deposit ; nevertheless, examination revealed the 

 presence of a small piece of what seemed to be brick (about 

 the size of a pea) on about the same level as the boulder. 

 Numerous pieces of carbonized woody fibre ; two small 

 pebbles, one of flint, the other of quartz ; and one or two 

 flint flakes, were also extracted from it. This clay is 

 underlaid by sand of variable thickness, below which the 

 decomposed rock is at last reached. 



3. — Rue des Marettes, St. Martin's. 



In the process of widening this lane, which leads from 

 the Villiaze towards Icart, and is but little below the greatest 

 altitude attained in this island, yellow earth interstratified 

 with sandy clay was found in pockets 2 or 3 feet in depth. 

 These pockets were numerous, being generally only separated 

 from each other by a few feet or at most yards where the 

 soil rested directly on decomposed rock, The stratification 



