TOST-TERTIARY BEDS AT WATEORD. 
19 
To what extent ice and snow occurred over England is one 
which admits of considerable differences of opinion, and it would 
he out of place, as well as unnecessary, to discuss this interesting 
question here. The main fact to which I particularly wish to 
draw attention is that at a period far distant from the present the 
climate of this country, and, therefore, of the Colne Yalley, was 
very cold, and, in all probability, beds of gravel, sand, and clay, 
containing flint-pebbles, unworn flints, and pebbles of quartz and 
quartzite such as occur in bed No. 5, were laid down in the Colne 
Yalley during the cold period. Let it be assumed, therefore, that 
at or about the close of the so-called glacial period in the Colne 
Yalley, beds of the kind just described existed there. This 
assumption would enable us at once to account for the immediate 
origin of the materials of which bed No. 5 is composed. The 
general appearance of this bed, its masses of peat, and its occurrence 
at the lower part of a well-defined river-valley, clearly indicate that 
it was formed partly or wholly by river-action. It may, in fact, 
be reasonably concluded that the original drift was disturbed and 
redistributed by the action of a river running through the ancient 
representative of the present valley of the Colne. Whether the 
high grounds on each side of the valley were higher relatively 
to the river than they are now is difficult to ascertain, but it seems 
most likely that they were. The rainfall, however, was probably 
much greater, and the climate colder. All these conditions would 
help to form a river having a volume larger than that of the Colne, 
a faster current, and what is much more important from our point 
of view, subject to violent floods after heavy rainstorms and the 
melting of snow and ice in the Spring. This river, especially 
during floods, transported the drifts and redeposited them, at the 
same time tearing away masses of vegetation growing in its 
shallowest parts, or on and near its banks, and mingling them 
with the redeposited materials as indicated by the occurrence of 
masses of peat in bed No. 5. 
I have been informed by Mr. E. H. Jackson, until lately a member 
of this Society, that several years ago some masses of peat were 
found in or close to Water Lane, at the part near the main railway. 
This peat occurred in beds very similar, so far as my information 
goes, to those of the Gas Works, and from the occurrence of such 
deposits and others in various parts of the Colne Yalley between 
the railway and Bushev Mill Lane, it would seem that the ancient 
river of the Colne Yalley underwent changes in its course. 
The nearly horizontal position of bed No. 4, the extreme fineness 
of the muddy material from which it was formed, and the presence 
therein of many unbroken but very fragile shells, clearly indicate 
that the clay was quietly deposited from flood-waters which spread 
over a fairly level tract of the gravel and sand on either side of 
the ancient river, or situated between its branches, such as may 
be seen to-day along the valley of the Colne. As previously stated, 
this clay was, no doubt, derived from the neighbouring Leading Beds. 
The bed of clay No. 3, the materials of which cannot be so easily 
