METEOROLOGY OF THE MIDLANDS. 
115 
terraces between Basford and Bnlwell was deposited. The Leen now 
began to deepen its channel, and to carve out the hollow in the older 
deposits now occupied by the more recent gravel, sand, and silt. The 
climate soon became so far ameliorated that vegetation flourished down 
to the very bottom of the valley, and peat began to accumulate. The 
growth of plants at the bottom of the Leen Valley seems to suggest 
that the land had once more been raised after submergence. Only 
small fragmentary patches of this earlier growth of peat escaped the 
denudation that afterwards took place. How and when the red 
hematite was brought into the valley and came to be so mixed with the 
rusty coloured gravel at the bottom of the alluvial deposits remains a 
mystery. Then came the deposition of the gray sand in regular even 
layers, as if it had been quietly precipitated along the level bottom of 
a broad stream, many times broader than the Leen is now. Again, 
there appears to have been an elevation of the land, for we find the stools 
of oak trees with their rootlets embedded in the sand in such a way that 
deposition must have ceased for a time, and the area became dry ground. 
By-and-bye the climate, which during the growth of the oak trees 
does not appear to have been very favourable, became more equable, and 
favoured the growth of pines and other plants which ultimately be¬ 
came choked with peat. Once more the ground was more or less 
continuously submerged, perhaps caused by increase in the rainfall, 
and the bottom of the valley became covered with the sheets of slit or 
clay which now mantle the alluvial plain, and which must themselves 
have taken many centuries to form. 
METEGEOLOGY OF THE MIDLANDS. 
THE WEATHER OF MARCH, 1883. 
BY CLEMENT L. WRAGGE, F.R.G.S., F.M.S., ETC. 
This was a month remarkable for constant cold and wintry weather 
with abundance of frost and snow. At some stations no rain fell, and 
the entire precipitation consisted of snow, hail, or sleet. Mean tem¬ 
perature was about 35*3, and at Orleton it was “ more than 5 degrees 
below the average of 20 years.” Evidently the extraordinary weather 
was brought about by the peculiar distribution of pressure ; by cyclonic 
depressions travelling from the north of Russia in a west-south¬ 
westerly direction, hence taking a course the very opposite to that 
usually followed, and sweeping round the south side of an anti- 
cyclonic area, which persistently held its ground over Lapland and 
Northern Scandinavia. The highest reading of the barometer was 
30-738 on the 4th, and lowest 29-250 on 25th—26th. The air was at 
times very dry, and mean relative humidity was about 82%. Northerly 
winds prevailed. 
As I hope shortly to resume my travels I must now, for a season, 
bid the ol. servers farewell. Personally I tender my warmest thanks 
to one and all for the assistance they have given me; and I join with 
the Editors of this magazine in expressing our best acknowledgments, 
My interest in the “ Midland Naturalist ” will remain unabated, and I 
hope to send occasional notes in the course of my wanderings. 
Clement L. Wkagge. 
