138 THE QUESTION OF WORKABLE 



ferous period, having a marginal relation to the very ancient region 

 of elevation occupied by the Palaeozoic strata of the Welsh High- 

 lands. There is no evidence to show that these coal measures ever 

 extended into the region of East Anglia. 



Turn we now to the continent of Europe. There we find the 

 great axis of elevation of the Ardennes running through Belgium, 

 and the Lower Rhine country. On the north fiank of this is the 

 connected series of coal measures worked all along the country by 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Valenciennes, and 

 even as far west as Calais and Marquise in Picardy. This axis of 

 the Ardennes points to a continuation of it under the Weald, the 

 axis of which (cut through by the English Channel) begins in the 

 Boulonais, and is continued through Hastings, Crowborough, and 

 Horsham, beyond which we trace distinctly an axis of elevation 

 through Hind Head (near Guildford), Kingsclere, and Inkpen, in 

 the direction of the axis of the Mendip Hills. It is to the north of 

 this that the proved coal measures lie, as do also, in all probability, 

 those recently discovered at Dover, though in a sketch map attached 

 to a pamphlet recently issued by Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S., 

 this axis is made to turn more to the north so as to pass under 

 London and leave the Dover coal measures to the south of it. The 

 Dover coal measures are in all likeHhood a direct continuation of 

 those of North France and Belgium, and (according to the views of 

 some eminent geologists who have given special attention to this 

 question) are most likely to be found in their continuation further 

 west by trial borings along the line of country lying immediately 

 south of the great chalk escarpment of the North Downs. When 

 nearly twenty years ago highly-inclined Devonian indurated shales, 

 some of the cores of which I had opportunities at the time of exam- 

 ining, were brought up from a deep boring for water at the brewery 

 of Messrs. Meux and Co., at the corner of Tottenham Court Road 

 and New Oxford Street, the natural conclusion of geologists at the 

 time was that there was a Palceozoic ridge running east and west 

 under London ; but further evidence obtained in more recent years 

 from deep borings at Cheshunt (Turnford) and Ware have shown 

 that this inference is no longer tenable. These have proved that for 

 twenty miles north of London, not only does the old Palceozoic floor 

 rise as we proceed northwards to that distance, but we pass from the 

 Devonian strata proved at Tottenham Court Road and at Kentish 

 Town, into the still older strata of the Silurian, getting further down 



