BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT NEWCASTLE. 



379 



A stone coffin was found, and also an armlet, which had been placed 

 on the arm of a buried person. When they looked in front of the great 

 face of excavation and saw overhead the Jesuit College, the ancient 

 cemetery, and the Eoman and pre-Homan graves, the question arose, 

 " What could be the antiquity of the sand and gravel deposit at the 

 lower level ?" In Sir Charles Lyell's recently-published volume the situ- 

 ation was fully described. Concerning the deposits there was no difference 

 of opinion ; they were to be reckoned among the later deposits of geolo- 

 gical time, and in the lower parts of these deposits a great number of in- 

 teresting implements had been obtained. He described the deposits in 

 detail, stating that freshwater and land shells were found in gravels and 

 sands, and an argillaceous deposit over them. For the freshwater and 

 land shells in the gravel it was not necessary to appeal to the action of the 

 seas, which however was seen in the lower part of the level. There were, 

 in different levels, cases of great agitation of water, comparative agitation, 

 and comparative tranquillity. They might imagine a lacustrine deposit, 

 against which there would be the objection that it would not produce 

 gravel in such a form, it being twisted about in all ways, and that there 

 ought to have been found lying parallel to the surface of the lake a great 

 number of lacustrine shells ; such was not the case, and that explanation 

 would not apply to the mixture of freshwater and land and amphibious 

 shells. The more ordinary explanation was to suppose the action of a 

 river which had changed its position, so that the flint-instruments found 

 near the bottom might formerly have existed near the top. The arrange- 

 ment of the sands was obviously of such a kind that they floated over the 

 pebbles and covered all below. The whole question came finally to this, 

 — Could they determine the age of the gravel beds ? They could not 

 escape the conviction that the flint-instruments were of the same age as 

 the gravel beds. Upon the supposition of strata having been deposited 

 by river action, the upper surface of the deposits would continually tend 

 to become level, and would be so when the deposits were of an argillaceous 

 nature. In this case the slope varied from 2| to If degrees. In order to 

 account for the present condition of things, it would be necessary to sup- 

 pose that the country had been disturbed, and that there had been an ele- 

 vation affecting the valley of the Somme. On an examination of the loca- 

 lity, they would speedily arrive at the impression that it was requisite to 

 remember that there was no period of geological history from which it was 

 safe to exclude a movement of the earth's crust. The map of France 

 showed the causes of the elevation. The rivers ran in parallel lines across 

 the chalk, and it was impossible to separate the circumstance from the si- 

 milar fact in this country where these phenomena had been discovered. 

 As there was reason to think that the valley had been subject to upheaval, 

 accepting the supposition, they would not be able to determine the ques- 

 tion of age by the excavation of the river. If they followed the sugges- 

 tion of Sir C. Lyell, and took their measure from Scandinavia, they might 

 come to some determination as to time ; but this was a case of a local dis- 

 turbance of the earth's crust, affecting certain lines of country in a given 

 direction, and apparently ceasing beyond that. 



On the Drift Beds at Mundesley, Norfolk. By Professor Phil- 

 lips. — His remarks went to confirm some views which were of the greatest 

 importance in reasoning with regard to the antiquity of mankind, and at 

 the same time suggesting a mode of consideration which he hoped could 

 be followed up. The district on the coast of Norfolk, where the cliffs were 

 formed of glacial, postglacial, and preglacial deposits, had become famous 

 through the investigations of Mr. Taylor. Some thirty years ago in 



