STUDLAND. 485 



ed its consumption of rock in order to have left its old bed to 

 accumulate, — and then eaten away most furiously to have got 

 so low without any trouble or traces of its progress. Sup- 

 pose, however, we assume the case of the Sioule to be the 

 counterpart of the examples presented by raised beaches, — 

 or what, perhaps, is nearer the fact, that after its old channel 

 was blocked up by a lava-flood, as was the case, a conveni- 

 ent operation of volcanic forces suddenly burst open this bar- 

 rier, and split the rock vertically downward, and the whole 

 mystery is solved. And if any person will carefully consider 

 the thousands of examples that are scattered over the surface 

 of England, — nay, if he will confine himself to known and 

 familiar cases, those of the chalk range, which is everywhere 

 fractured to give way to rivers that had no other outlet, — or 

 those of Herefordshire, which pass through similar openings 

 in the old red sandstone, — it will be found that rocks of every 

 formation exhibit one and the same phenomenon respecting 

 rivers and streams, and that these occupy beds made for them 

 by disruptions of the strata, and not beds which they have 

 made for themselves by their own action. And why should 

 these sandy chines be an exception ? 



It is urged that the sand is full of springs, and that, near 

 Bourne Mouth, under the signal-staff, the cliffs do visibly 

 founder through the continual action of land-springs. No 

 doubt such is the case ; but where is the parallel between this 

 foundering of a whole surface of cliff, and the regular gradual 

 hollowing out of one deep and deepening channel ? More- 

 over, it can be shown (and will be) that these chines are 

 nothing but diluvial furrows, which gave direction to the di- 

 luvial waters, because they were suddenly formed, and which 

 now afford a similar passage to the springs that are seen to 

 well out, not at the level of the top of the sides of the valleys, 

 but at some distance vertically below that level, — the valleys 

 being excavated above and beyond their origin. Such also 

 is the case at Studland. The puny streams that occupy an 

 inch or two in depth of the ravines through which they flow, 

 rise a considerable way vertically above the height of the 

 walls of the ravines, and before they reach the ravines have 

 not excavated the sand over which they run, but follow the 

 natural declivity of the ground. It may, finally, be said, — 

 look at Niagara ! — (sic parvis componere magna) — see how it 

 has eaten its way backward towards Lake Erie ! The rea- 

 son of this retrograde reform — this ' advancing of three steps 

 backwards 1 — is obvious. The soft marl is destroyed, and, 

 therefore, the limestone inter stratified with it is destroyed; — 

 but has Niagara, since the day it left its old fall at Queens- 



