428 
CLARK : GLACIAL SECTIONS. 
gravel, here only 9 feet below the surface, restiDg on a sand bed, 
5 feet thick. So far as I can learn this is the first instance of any 
carnivorous remains being- found near York. The deposits at 
Overton, 5 miles to the north, only yielded Mammoth, Hippopota- 
mus, &c. According to Phillips, the valley gravels have also pro- 
duced Cervus elephas, Bos jwimigenius, and Equus fossilis ; whilst 
recently a bone has been obtained by Mr. Keeping, believed to be 
that of the Rhinoceros. 
Turning next to the glacial beds themselves, we will take up 
two series of sections which have thrown considerable light upon 
their local characteristics. The two special points to which 
attention should be directed are the mixed character of the beds 
and the marvellous contortions they have undergone. 
During the spring of 1876, drainage works at the Friends' 
Retreat, York, made requisite some very deep excavations. These 
were accomplished by vertical shafts, connecting with a horizontal 
drift, at the deepest point 47 feet beneath the surface. The shafts 
were 50 feet apart, 10 feet wide along the drift, and 5 feet across. 
The whole excavation was in glacial beds, and had a total length 
of about 650 feet from N.W. by W, to S.E. by E., thus giving a 
transverse section of the hill. 
Nothing unusual was noticed until the fifth shaft was begun. 
The first 25 feet of this was sunk in ordinary boulder clay. This 
was in all parts filled with pebbles and boulders, large mounds of 
which were heaped around. A block of sandstone measured 3 
feet by 1-J by 1 foot ; its weight, therefore, must have been over 
a quarter of a ton. Just below sand-bed E,* however, between 
the 8th and 9th shafts, the workmen were much troubled by far 
larger blocks, one or two they thought, nearly a ton in weight. 
The limestone blocks were invariably scratched and polished, some 
of them presenting a magnificent appearance. 
* The sand beds are called A, B. C, D. and E. beginning at the 1st shaft at 
the N.W. end. 
