Chines.

south. This is the origin of the Chines; and if Origin of the any one wants to see nature beginning new valleys, these chines are very pretty examples of the operation. I think that the name is provincial for chin. Near Newhaven is a Chin Gap, of precisely the proper shape for the name.

The wash of rain from the north of the south chalk formed the eastern part of the bed of drift which overlies the Wealden from Atherfield to Brixton (Bridestone) Bay; as the southern run of the north chalk has formed the western part of this bed, from Compton Bay to Brook Bay.

In all the geological sections and accounts of this district that I have seen, the north chalk is designated as vertical, the south chalk as horizontal. This is a great mistake. Equivalent parts of each have the same degree of dip; though the dip of the north chalk is to the northwest, and the dip of the south chalk to the southeast. On the top of the north range the chalk is nearly horizontal; but as we descend to the north side and foot of the hill, the beds are vertical. On the top of the south range, the chalk has a gentle dip to the south-east; and but that the chalk which formerly clothed the south side and foot of this range has long been washed into the sea, the beds of it would have been vertical, as a matter of course; so would any

G

Origin of the name of the

Weald.'

Answer to
Lyell's ques-

tertiary beds beyond, with which, no doubt, this chalk was covered at its first elevation. If these beds were not vertical, we must suppose that the elevation of the anticlinal axis of the Wealden produced one mechanical effect on the north side and a contrary mechanical effect on the south side, which is absurd. We can see that the south-east dip of the lower cretaceous beds from Atherfield to beyond Rocken End, is equivalent to the north-west dip of these beds from Compton Grange towards Freshwater. If the upper bed of chalk did not dip also, we must suppose that it was deposited unconformably on the lower cretaceous beds, which is also absurd.

The name of the Weald' is from Andreades weald; the Saxon translation of the Roman Silva Anderida. Whether Pevensey in Sussex or Newenden in Kent was Anderida is now disputed. Andred was the ancient British for uninhabited. I persuade myself that the traces of this ancient Forest may still be seen as far west as Rotherfield in Hampshire, in the magnificent old pollards (polled) there, and in the black rings of the charcoal burner. He was obliged to poll the trees to grow his coppice wood in the air, on account of the browsing of the deer and cattle.

With regard to the question asked by Lyell, 'At what period was the Weald valley denuded?'

the answer is, the period extends from the first tion, 'At what moment that the tertiary strata were rained

on

to the present moment, and the period will be extended till the last grain of the Wealden region is deposited below the wave; nay, though it is a bull, till long after this; for when the Wealden strata are gone, the region will become an oolitic region; which, like all other regions, will be finally put under the sea. This process is going on now as rapidly as ever, and no causes have ever operated to denude the Weald which are not now at work every day and all day long. We have not yet sufficiently apprehended the true depth of the Pythagorean doctrine,

Omnia mutantur nihil interit.

If the Weald had suffered denudation at some remote period, and had then remained the same, it would be the only thing on this terraqueous globe which had not changed in the time. The sea even changes places with the land as much as the land with the sea; and it does not roll now

Such as creation's dawn beheld.

It rolls now where once wide continents spread their bosoms; and it once rolled where the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalaya now rear their snow-capped heads.

period was the Weald valley

denuded?'

Art, empire, earth to change are doomed,

Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale, And gulfs the mountain's mighty mass entombed, And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloomed.

Nor even are the contents of its depths or its shallows the same for a single day. It is the region of perpetual deposit as the land is of perpetual denudation. In its fruitful womb new continents are for ever being generated; and these new continents it gives to man, as Aladdin did his new lamps, in exchange for old ones.

CHAPTER V.

LYELL ON THE VAL D'ARNO.

IF VALLEYS WERE WIDENED BY EROSION OF RIVER BANKS, SLOPE, BUT MUST BE CLIFFS,

THEIR SIDES WOULD NOT

WITH

INTERVENING TABLE LAND. RIVERS CUT DEEP CHANNELS, RAIN MAKES WIDE VALLEYS. FLAT LAND MAY BE DENUDED. WATER MAY RUN WITHOUT A SLOPE OF LAND. NATURE ENDEAVOURS TO PREVENT DEN UDATION BY ROOTS, NOT LEAVES; MAN BY TERRACES. CHANGES.

ETERNAL CIRCLE OF

In chapter xlv., 'Principles,' Lyell makes up by far his best mixture of his various theories for the formation of valleys, since he there confines himself to rain and rivers. And with the exception that he lays too much stress on the erosion of their banks by rivers, with some trifling contradictions, the principles are here true principles. He talks of those disintegrated rocks, of which such enormous masses are swept down annually into the sea.' And he winds up with, by ploughing up thousands of square miles, and exposing a surface for part of the year to the action of the elements, we assist the abrading force of rain, and diminish the conservative effects of vegetation.'

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