Slraiificalion of Fra7ice and Ungknd, 1$S 



speaking of the cvp^sums being crystallized fronn the waters 



oF their l*arisian lake ? 



The candid confession of ilie essential differences between 

 the seaSf the fresh- waters and (lie alluvium o^ the old world, 

 and the seas, fresh-waters and alluvia of the present world, 

 made bv uux auttjors, in the concluding paragraphs of iheir 

 II Id, Vllfih, and IXlh articles, do them credit, and give 

 some weiglit to my suggestions above, which are not here 

 made for the first time. 



Our authors say (p. 3 7), 'that *^ a strongly marked cha- 

 racter of a great eruption proceeding from the south-east 

 i^ imprinted on the forms of the eminences," f)n which 

 subject it may be proper to remark, tliat soon after Mr. Smith 

 had commenced liis investigation of the Britisli strata, he 

 discovf.red an important law regulating all the knoum 

 alluvia, or that which consisted of or contained the frag- 

 ments and rehquia of known strata, were moved /707W the 

 south-cast towards the south-west : the matters of any 

 particular stratum being rarely if ever found as allnvinni 

 upon tiiaistratnui, l>ul such matters are found more or less 

 plentifully on the surface, beyond its w^estern edge: in- 

 stances arc numerous m blngland of considerable and un- 

 broken masses of soil or clayey known strata, being moved 

 many miles and lodged in the alluvia ; stones of large size 

 thus moved, and scarcely at all rounded, are exceedingly 

 common in some districts, and such are often lodged on 

 the highest hills, but the most common state of the native 

 alluvia, is in small water-worn and mixed fragments: nu- 

 merous hills in Bedfordshire of considerable extent are thus 

 formed or raised higher, by alluvia of the chalk strata and 

 ^Jhose which cover it, including a vast variety of limestone 

 holders that are full of shells, many of which, if properly 

 examined, would I suspect aiircc with the coarse Tunestones 

 of the basin of Paris : nw researches in the midland conn- 

 ties, have detected many isolated patches of exacily similar 

 alluvia, pariicularlv on the height NVV. of Leicester town, 

 where an innneuse cap of alluvial clay, so abounds with 

 hard chalk and these holders of limestone, that at Burstal 

 Cliflf- house on the road to Thurnby» they have been dug 

 for burning lime : the covering matter at Chellaston gyp- 

 sum (juarrles S. of Derby, is of 'this same clay ; but lune- 

 bolders do not there so much abound, as they do near Lei- 

 cester and tJicnce in isolated paiches towards Market Har- 

 borough, forming there the principal material for repairing 

 the public road. The above wiih others are indications I think 

 of vast tidal currents which have swept over all the surface 



I ^ from 



