May, 1890. 
QUATERNARY DEPOSITS OF SHROPSHIRE. 
118 
for many reasons. It may suffice here to state that the 
travelled stones have been conveyed, in some cases, from 
south to north, that the shells in the sands and gravels are 
marine shells, and that during the formation of these deposits 
there was a submergence of the land of at least one thousand 
feet. I think the condition will be better explained by the 
following theory. Central England was covered by a sea that 
at one time rose nearly to, or perhaps above, the highest 
hills. This submergence and the subsequent emergence were 
very gradual, so that the plains of Shropshire lay for ages 
beneath the waves. Ice-floes and, perhaps, icebergs, con¬ 
veyed by currents from different points of the compass, drifted 
to and fro, and, when they melted or capsized, deposited their 
stony burdens over the sea-floor. There were, probably, 
small local glaciers formed on the flanks of some of our hills 
when the land stood rather high ; but of the occurrence of an 
ice-slieet in Shropshire I have at present found no satisfactory 
proof. 
I have been too busy with the older rocks of Britain to 
give much time to the drifts of Salop, but I should be pleased 
to aid any who will take up this interesting study. We want 
a careful mapping of the whole area. The nature of the 
deposits and the probable origin of the travelled fragments 
should be iudicated. The exact relations between the boulder 
clays and the gravels must be ascertained. Above all, it is 
of the first importance to find out if there are any indications 
of the occupation of the region by man previous to or during 
the glacial epoch. At a former meeting of the club, one of 
our members, Mr. W. K. Wyley, of Shrewsbury, exhibited a 
flint implement which he had found on Grrinshill Hill, a little 
below the summit. This flint has apparently been shaped by 
human hands ; but as it occurred at the surface of the ground, 
and not in the sands and gravels which appear somewhat 
lower down the slope of the hill, we are left without indica¬ 
tion of its age. These flint tools and weapons should be 
looked for in the sands and gravels. 
Miss Eyton [supra, p. 77) gives an interesting description 
of the deposits which succeed the glacial sands and clays, 
though probably by a considerable interval. These newer 
formations she assigns to two ages—the Lake Period and the 
Forest Period. To one of these epochs may probably be 
assigned some deposits which I have recently examined in 
Wellington. They occupy a hollow lying in front of the 
church of one of our vice-presidents, the Rev. Tlios. Owen. 
At the base are the marine gravels, with grooved and striated 
stones. Then comes a thin layer of blue clay, overlain by 
