Science progress. 



Vol. VII. (Vol. II. of New Series). JULY, 1898. No. 8. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH SCENERY. 



"// is a strange thing that the geography of the mother country has never 

 yet been systematically worked out.''' — J. S. Keltie, Presidential Address to 

 Section E at the British Association at Toronto, 1897. 



IT often happens that the main principles of a subject are 

 first discovered in a region where complications exist 

 which surround the study of that subject with many diffi- 

 culties, and consideration of the growth of our knowledge of 

 earth-sculpture illustrates this statement. The influence of 

 the running waters of the land, first appreciated by Hutton, 

 as the result of researches in Britain, was very fully proved 

 by a host of our own countrymen, by reference to the facts 

 which they acquired in this island. The complexity of the 

 geological structure of the island prevented the laws of 

 erosion being fully grasped by British geologists, and we 

 owe the first additions to our knowledge of stream-sculpture 

 to the school of American geologists and geographers, 

 working in areas of considerable simplicity, who have sup- 

 plied us with a very full account of the action of running 

 water ; prominent amongst the members of this school 

 stands G. K. Gilbert, whose essay on denudation marks an 

 important step in the study of erosion (i). 



The complexity in the distribution of the waterways of 

 a complex geological area may be produced (i.) by the 

 coalescence of a number of drainage systems initiated at 

 different times, or (ii.) by the influence of differential uplifts, 

 and of the characters and distribution of the rocks upon 



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