On the Relation of the Westleton Shingle to other Pre-Glacial Drifts in the Thames Basin, and on a Southern Drift, with Observations on the Final Elevation and Initial Subaerial Denudation of the Weald: and on the Genesis of the Thames

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Abstract
1. Distinctive Characters of the Southern Drift. Taxing the strata in their order of succession, this paper ought to have preceded the last, but for the fact that for the purpose of classification it was essential to have a base-line of which the position had been previously determined, such as that offered by the Westleton Shingle, before the relation of the other pre-glacial Drift-deposits in the Thames Valley to one another and their relative age could be established. It is for this object that I attach importance to the Westleton Beds last described ; but besides these, which are confined almost entirely to the north side of the Thames, there is another closely allied hill-drift, which I propose to call the “ Southern Drift,“ of more limited range and confined chiefly to the south side of the Thames. I at first thought it possible that they might be synchronous *, but now I have come to the conclusion that the Southern Drift is the older of the two, in the sense afterwards to be explained. Both of them are so restricted to outliers, often very small and far apart, and have been so much encroached upon by Glacial Drifts of later date, that the relation they bear to one another is generally much obscured. The leading points on which we have mainly to depend are the relative levels and the differences in the character and origin of the rock-fragments and pebbles composing the two deposits, and in the proportion and condition of those which are common to both.

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