140 THE (QUESTION OF WORKABLE 



throwing off the WestphaUan coalfield ; but that on the contrary the 

 multiple axis of the Devonian district of Sauerland, to the north of 

 which this coalfield lies, is really a feebler continuation of the 

 Ardennes axis, which rises to its highest elevation in the Hohe Veen, 

 from which it has been severed by a quondam arm of the sea now 

 occupied by the broad valley of the Rhine about Cologne as drawn 

 on Mr. Harrison's map. One is thus led to reject the conjecture 

 upon which the diagram in (question is based, so far as the existence 

 of a synclinal coal measure trough under North Essex is concerned ; 

 and the whole diagram is seen to be still further misleading, when 

 one recognises the fact, that, in what professes to be a continuous 

 section, the line of country represented by that portion of the section 

 which extends from Dover to London is about at right angles to the 

 general trend of the remaining portion of the section. A further 

 difficulty arises if we attempt to reconcile Mr. Harrison's map with 

 his sectional diagram, for in the former he has postulated an axis 

 of elevation running north from London, the evidence of the borings 

 quoted showing a general dip of the strata to south, as shown in the 

 diagram. 



GENERAL CONCLUSION. 



The view which I am inclined to take from the foregoing con- 

 siderations is that the existence of the Lower Carboniferous strata 

 beneath Harwich points to a possible general dip of the strata from 

 the Herts and East Anglian Palaeozoic axis to the south-east, the 

 dip indicated in the line of borings partaking of this, but not 

 representing the true dip of the Palaeozoic strata ; and that the Dover 

 coal measures may be continued under the Nore and might be 

 reached in South-Easl Essex. Of their occurrence in North Essex 

 I see no probability. When the actual dip of the Coal Measures at 

 Dover is proved by sinking shafts into them new light will be thrown 

 upon this ; meanwhile, no more useful experiment perhaps could be 

 tried than (as is, I believe, contemplated) the execution of a second 

 boring into the Lower Carboniferous strata a little way from Harwich, 

 so as to ascertain the dip of those strata in that region. 



Note. 



Writing on August ist. Dr. Irving adds : "A paper by Messrs. 

 W. Whitaker, F.R.S., and A. J. Jukes-Browne, was read at the 

 meeting of the Geological Society on June 20th, and has since been 

 pubHshed (" Jour. Geo. Soc." vol. 1., pp. 448-514). It contains a list 



