the London and Hampshire Basins. 



197 



palaeontology is a passion, and whose indomitable energy 

 triumplis over the difficulties of position and infirmities of health, 

 and makes himself the object of our own "especial wonder ^^ — 

 from the commanding points of this elevation, we look north and 

 south over the long ranges of longitudinal flexures, and observe 

 that the most strongly marked and most influential of these are 

 the most distant ; they lift the chalk downs on either side and 

 regulate their position. The strong flexure of the Hogsback is 

 propagated from Farnham eastwards in a strong line of elevation, 

 at least as far as Sevenoaks* ; and it is more than matched by 

 the Greenhurst line, which, with little intermission, regulates the 

 escarpment of the South Downs from Beachy Head to the borders 

 of Hampshire. If we advance further west and take our stand 

 at Itchingfield or Five Oaks, we find that we are still within the 

 range of the same disruptive courses ; and looking west from 

 thence, we see in the profile of the country before us, and at 

 twelve miles distance, the passage of the central line of elevation 

 through the lower greensand, in the shape of a valley of eleva- 

 tion at Haslemere, flanked by the bold eminences of Black Down 

 on the south and Hindhead on the north. 



Profile of the Haslemere country, seen from high grounds at 

 Itchingfield. 



Blackdown. 



Haslemere. 



Hindhead, 



Let us advance again to Yar Down in the Alton Hills, and 

 thence along the chalk dome of Hampshire, and we find our po- 

 sition again flanked by similar disruptions; the Winchester, 

 Warminster and Wardour lines of flexure on the south, and the 

 Eurghclere Hills, and the anticlinal vales of Pewsey and Kings- 

 clere on the north. In all this long range of country the same 

 arrangement of hill and valley, the joint operation of fracture and 

 aqueous erosion, and the same transverse river-courses obtain; 

 a structural arrangement that cannot but compel the belief of a 

 unity of cause. 



The superior breadth and volume of this central line of eleva- 

 tion within the Weald denudation, its uniform and almost un- 

 broken course, make it the body of which the lesser anticlinals 

 are the wings. And from the greater prominence, and more 

 notable character of the distant flexures under the chalk downs 

 * Hopkins, Geol. Trans, loc. cit. ; and Dr. Fitton, vide supra. 



Phil. Mag. S. 4. Vol. 2. No. 10. Sept. 1851. P 



