BRITISH A.SSOCIATIO>'^ MEETING AT NEWCASTLE. 
379 
A stone coffin was found, and also an armlet, which had been placed 
on the ainn 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 Eoraan and pre-Eoman 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, com]iarative 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 explan;ition 
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-i-istruments 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 1^ 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 sugijesting 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 
