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THE GEOLOGIST. 



Yorkshire, belovr the boulder clay, there was found a quantity of flint and 

 chalk gravel, which contained the bones of elephants, horses, and other 

 creatures. Soon afterwards a similar discovery was made in Norfolk. 

 Having described these deposits, the Professor said he was inclined to 

 think they must not venture to apply to this country any argument drawn 

 from Scandinavia. Each country must be studied for itself, and it was 

 better to take each class of glacial deposits separately. He thought it 

 was possible to account for these deposits by the introduction of the tide 

 at different levels, and that it was not at all necessary to suppose that the 

 coast had been disturbed in order to account for the level of the marine 

 shells. He was inclined to think that all those mammaliferous strata 

 should be put together as the deposit of one period. 



On the Alluvial Accumulations in the Valleys of the Somme 

 and Ouse. By Mr. R. A. Godwin-Austen. 



On the Discovery or Elephant and other Mammalian Remains 

 in Oxfordshire. By Mr. G. E. Roberts. — A considerable number of ele- 

 phant and other mammalian bones have recently been met with in a cut- 

 ting upon a new line of railway passing through Thame, in Oxfordshire. 

 They were taken from a coarse rubbly gravel, mixed with stiff clay, about 

 13 feet from the surface. The section gives a surface-clay, lightish-yellow 

 in colour and with a sandy bottom, 11 feet in thickness, lying upon gravel, 

 the average thickness of which is 2 feet 6 inches, and which passes down- 

 wards into a light coloured sand. About 10 feet down in the clay, a vase 

 was found, of coarse earthenware, full of small bones, and just above the 

 gravel another vase of coarse brown ware. The gravel extended linearly 

 for 60 yards, and was slightly dome-shaped. Some of the bones have 

 been submitted to Dr. Falconer, who has recognized Elephas primi genius 

 of the Siberian type, — teeth and other remains rather abundant ; Elephas 

 antiquus ; a large species of Bos {primigenius ? or prisons ?), — top of ra- 

 dius, tibia, and horn core ; many bones and teeth of JEquus caballus fos- 

 silis, including a finely-preserved tibia of great size and a portion of 

 another still larger ; and some good fragmentary specimens of the horns 

 of Cervus elaphus. 



On the Hydrography of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. 

 By Dr. Hulburt. — The effects of frosts and thaws during the Canadian 

 winters are very remarkable on the rivers, smaller lakes, and bays of the 

 great lakes in the valley of the St. Lawrence. One example may be 

 given. In the winter of 1861 the writer very carefully examined those 

 effects upon Burlington Bay, at the head of Lake Ontario. The ice at the 

 time was about 15 inches thick. Frequent thaws occur during the winter, 

 at all of which the ice expands with the rise of temperature. With the 

 return of the cold the ice again contracts, but the part which has been 

 shoved upon the shore remains stationary, and the ice opens or cracks in 

 parts over deep water. During twenty-four hours the ice had expanded 

 6 feet over a distance of 2 miles, whilst it remained firm on the south side 

 of the bay, carrying with it about 80 feet of a wharf, which broke at the 

 centre, whilst some 80 feet nearer the shore remained firmly imbedded in 

 the ice that had not yielded. Similar effects were produced in other places 

 along the same shore. This expansion and contraction of the ice is sure 

 to destroy all these bridges and wharves built upon piles and light spars in 

 the lakes and rivers which freeze over ; for the larger lakes remain open 

 during the winter. The boulders of primitive rocks which thickly strew 

 the valley of the St. Lawrence are found, on one shore of the smaller 

 lakes and rivers, to have been carried by the action of the ice far away 

 from the water ; and whilst those boulders often occur so abundantly on 



