OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. 
913 
and Jersey have been surrounded by a Raised beach* overlaid by a “head” of 
Rubble-drift, though it is only at intervals that remnants of the beach are now to be 
seen. In Guernsey, sections more or less perfect are shown on the cliff south of 
St. Peter’s, at St. Martin’s Point, in Saints Bay, La Pezerie,t Creux des Fees,t Havre, 
Bordeaux,! at Fort Gray, Lihou Fort, and Cobo.| Also at a few places on the north 
side of the island. Amongst the best preserved are those at Lihou passage and 
Firman Bay, of which latter the following (fig. 5) is a section. 
Fig. 5 .—Raised Beach, Firman Bay. 
a 
c 
R 
a. Head o£ angular fragments of tlie local rocks—some of the fragments of large size—in a matrix of 
loam or brick-earth, 20 feet thick. 
c. Raised beach of well-rolled pebbles and subangular blocks of granite, &c., 6 feet thick. 
E. Granite (decomposed), 5 feet. 
The height of the beach is less than on the English coast, being generally only 5 to 
8 feet above the high tide level. No shells are recorded. 
The greater part of the Island (as also Jersey) forms a plateau 300 to 350 feet 
high, of granitic and metamorphic rocks, and is without any commanding heights. 
This plateau is covered very generally by a deposit of Loess or brick-earth from 5 to 10 
feet thick, extending over the highest points of the surface. The Loess is identical 
with that on the mainland, and that it is not to be confounded with the decomposed 
granite or other rocks which it overlies, is shown in the followdng section (fig. 6). 
To whichever of the generally assigned causes the origin of “ Loess ” has been 
attributed—whether to river floods, or to glacial inundations, or to rainwash—it is 
impossible to admit that the Loess of Guernsey and Jersey can be attributed to any 
of them. There are no rivers in either island, and the watercourses are mere small 
brooks that could scarcely flood the lowest ground, and certainly could never, in 
present nor past times, have reached the plateau on which the Loess occurs. Nor are 
there any hills, rising above the general level of the plateaux, the wash from which 
could have been spread over those plateaux. Nor can it be admitted that it was 
formed when the island was connected with the mainland, and that the Loess is due 
* For notices of the raised beaches and drift beds of these islands, see the papers by Sir W. C. 
Teeveltan, ‘Proc. Geol. Soc.,’ vol. 2, p. 577, 1837; by R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, ‘ Quart. Jonrn. Geol. 
Soc.’ vol. 7, p. 118, 1851; Ansted’s ‘ Channel Islands,’ p. 280-296, 1862. 
t These places I give from sketches in my possession made by Mr. De La Condamine. 
+ At Cobo there is a second beach about 30 to 40 feet above the lower one, which latter is the one 
I have taken for my base line. 
MDCCCXCIII.—A. 6 A 
