356 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



could only warrant the inference Noah drew from it — and, as the sequel shows 

 correctly— on the supposition that the dove had not found it floating, a waif, on 

 the diluvial waters, but had plucked it from a tree still standing in its place and, 

 indeed, growing. The Deluge, then, was not equal to the uprooting, breaking, 

 or killing an olive tree ; a fortiori, it was not equal to the production of geological 

 phenomena such as man would be likely to recognize many years afterwards as 

 its effects, and the proofs of its existence. 



I am. Sir, yours, &c, 

 Lamoma, Torquay, July 3rd, 1861. Wm. Pengelly. 



SPIRIT 0 F GOOD BOOKS. 



MR. PRESTWICH'S AND MR. EVANS'S PAPER ON FLINT 

 IMPLEMENTS. 



(Continued from page 328.) 



This Boulder clay caps all the hills around and forms a low table-land, through 

 which the valleys are cut. Its very uneven base rests on white and yellow 

 sands and gravel (5). In some places, however, thick beds of ochreous and 

 ferruginous subangular flint-gravel, with subordinate beds of sand, form low 

 hills subtending the main plateau along the valley of the Waveney. This 

 gravel (2) is newer than the Boulder clay against which it usually slopes off, 

 running, in thin patches, up some of the lateral valleys. 



" The top of the freshwater deposit of Hoxne reaches within six or eight 

 feet of the summit of the hill, of which it forms an unbroken and uniform part. 

 The adjacent hills are of about the same height, and there is no ground above 

 a few feet higher for some miles around. No existing drainage, nor any 

 possible with this configuration of surface, could have formed these clays and 

 gravel beds, at the relative level they now occupy. 



" Since writing the above, I have had the pit and the intermediate ground 

 to the Waveney levelled. The top of the pit proves to be forty-two feet above 

 the adjacent brook, fifty-three feet above the Waveney, and one hundred and 

 twelve feet above the sea. With Sir Edward Kerrison's courteous permission, 

 we had also several trenches dug in the park to trace the extension of the 

 freshwater deposit.* Altogether there have been sixteen trenches and borings 

 made in and around the pit. — (October, 1860.) 



" The presence and abundance of perfect shells of Valvata and Bithinia, and 

 the quantity of vegetable matter render it probable that these beds were accu- 

 mulated by a slow stream, or a small marshy lake or mere, into which land- 

 shells, the remains of land-animals, and drifted wood were carried down. The 

 materials of this freshwater deposit are mainly such as would be produced and 

 sorted by the slow wearing away of the Boulder clay. The clays and marls 

 and the associated flint -gravels, with the pebbles of chalk, of quartz, and of 

 hard ?andstoiie, are materials just such as the artificial washing of the adjacent 

 Boulder clay now produces in the same field— a pure calcareous clay on the 

 one hand, and a heap of rough gravel and flints, and older rock pebbles, on the 

 other. The level of the Boulder clay in the adjacent field is lower than the 



* The results of these operations are embodied in the plans and sections 

 plate x. of Mr. Prestwich's paper. 



