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The Dredgings of the Marine Biological Association 

 (1895-1906), as a Contribution to the Knowledge 

 of the Geology of the English Channel. 



By 

 E. Hansford Worth, F.G.S. 



JVith Plates VI-XVII (including five charts) and four figures in the Text. 



INTRODUCTION, 



Investigation of the geologic problems connected with the English 

 Channel is no new matter. Setting aside all speculations deriving 

 from the study of its coast-line, the first serious examination of the 

 bed of the Channel was made by E. A. C. Austen, and his results 

 published in the Froccedings of the Geological Society, 13 June, 1849. 

 Although, as he states, he had examined the sea-bed with dredge and 

 sounding-lead he has little to say as to its lithology. But none the 

 less his work is a notable contribution to our knowledge, and his 

 conclusions bear well the test of subsequent discoveries. Following 

 Austen, in 1871, Delesse published his Lithologie des Mers de France, 

 in which considerable attention is given to the Channel ; and the 

 lithology of its coastal deposits, and to some extent of the sea-bed, is 

 considered in detail. But, valuable as this work is, its chief interest 

 lies in the information given as to the nature of the sea-bottom, the 

 grade and extent of the varying deposits. Austen and Delesse alike, 

 and in agreement, point out the large areas of the Channel bed which 

 are occupied by stones, boulders, and pebbles of some size, and argue 

 on much the same lines as to the conditions which have formerly 

 existed there. 



In 1879 the petrology of the English Channel was first seriously 

 attacked. Mr. A. K. Hunt then published in the Transactions of the 

 Devonshire Association a paper " On a Block of Granite from the 

 Salcombe Fishing Grounds." This was followed in 1880, 1881', 1883, 

 1885, and 1889 by five papers entitled, "Notes on the Submarine 

 Geology of the English Channel off the South Coast of Devon." And, 

 in 1896, the same author added later information in his paper on 



