344 
cole: dry valleys in the chalk. 
pastures, where the old ridges and furrows, with their curved outlines 
like an inverted S,''' mark the ancient method of ploughing with a 
team of oxen, miniature glaciers, half a foot deep, and several feet 
wide, crept down the furrows to join the ice-sheet in the broad bot- 
tom below. 
On a sudden came a rapid thaw ; and in a few hours the dale 
bottoms were converted into roaring torrents, in some cases 3 feet 
deep. The ground was still frozen hard underneath. The melting 
snow could not penetrate, and so " rivers ran in dry places." In 
some villages, lying in hollows, considerable damage was done : the 
water filled the lower rooms, and the inmates had to take refuge in 
their upper chambers. 
Amongst other things, a rush of water into a pond at the head 
of one of the dales, caused the bank to give way. The water flowing 
over the edge excavated a trench in the embankment 29 ft. long, 
from 1 to 6 ft. wide, and from 2 to 3 ft. deep. The materials, 
consisting of sods, loose chalk, &c., were carried a considerable 
distance down the dale bottom. One sod, measuring 3 ft. by 2 ft , 
was carried 80 yards. A quantity of chalk gravel was collected at a 
spot 180 yards from the pond, but the largest mass w^as deposited at 
a distance of 295 yards, where the stream had widened to about 8 
yards across. Smaller accumulations of chalk gravel continued as 
far as 530 yards. 
The floor of the dale was covered with ice. At first the water 
overflowed it, but after a time excavated a passage under the ice ; 
and standing on the ice you could see the water rushing underneath, 
transporting the chalk debris with it, and tearing up the turf. 
Nothing could more plainly show what rapid denudation of the 
chalk dry valleys might be carried on under glacial conditions. 
Shortly after making these observations, a paper. No. 501, 
" Abstracts of the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London," 
reached me, containing a communication from Mr. Clement Reid, 
on the origin of dry chalk valleys, in which the writer showed that, 
with a frozen subsoil, the drainage system of the chalk might be 
entirely modified, there being no underground circulation. 
* Canon Taylor. Domesday Survivals. Contemporary Review. Dec. 1886: 
p. 892. 
