122 
PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
1919 
accumulated during the Ice Age. It is probable that at the base 
some portion of the early Glacial deposits had become frozen, 
and remained so until eventually cut through by the river in 
post-Glacial times. 
It is submitted that the operations above described would 
account for the position and arrangement of the deposits of 
Glacial Age in the valley of the Severn, and that it is not 
necessary to postulate an invasion of the area by the great ice- 
sheets or any considerable marine or lacustrine submergence. 
VIII. The Close of the Glacial Epoch. 
Beds of fine light-coloured siliceous sand (Class E) form the 
latest of the Pleistocene Drift series of the district. Where they 
occur they underlie the surface soil, and there has been no 
perceptible recession of the Cotteswold escarpment since 
they were accumulated. They contain no Drift pebbles 
or other foreign material, but seams of waterwom Jurassic 
gravel, carried down by spring floods, are common and increase 
in thickness as the hills are approached. Where fully developed 
there is generally a bed of almost pure sand near the base, 
overlying subangular J urassic pebbles. There is no trustworthy 
record of the discovery of animal remains in the deposit, but 
tusks of the mammoth occur underneath in the weathered 
surface of the Lias Clay. 
The more important beds of siliceous sand commence near 
Mickleton with a thickness of about 10 feet and continue at 
intervals, mainly within a few miles of the Cotteswolds, to 
Cheltenham, where they reach a maximum of 40 feet. As thin 
seams in the Jurassic gravel, they attain an elevation of 380 feet 
O.D. in the Dowdeswell Valley. The beds decrease in thickness 
towards the south, and are not recognised as a separate deposit 
far below Gloucester. It is observed that there is very little 
sand of the same kind on the west of the Severn. 
The source of the sand has not yet been definitely ascertained. 
As described at a previous page, a lobe or melt-water from the 
Chalky Boulder Clay ice near Rugby may have flowed down 
