15 



Amount of pleasure to inform me that the spring 

 was at thebottoua of his garden. '1 hissprioer now 

 Appears very feeble. About 500 yards nearer Len- 

 bam, that is to the left alon^ the Maidstone Road, 

 is another epriog- of greater power, which has 

 been utiliped by man by banking to form a pond ; 

 the stream flows from the further right-hand 

 ■corner. When I am at such a spring as this, 

 Iwaded with mineral matter, I always feel inclined 

 to consider the hills through which the water has 

 penetrated, for by so doing it has deprived the 

 «artb of some of its constituentp. A few miles 

 down at Great Chart we find it still a small stream 

 flowing in one of the lateral valleys of the Weald. 

 As it nears Hothfield it flo^s through an alluvial 

 deposit and soon meets the East Stour, just south 

 of Ashford. The East Stour rises at Poatling and 

 is supplied with a spring of considerable force ; at 

 the foot ot the chalk hill it gushes out as from a 

 subterranean river. It was rather interesting to 

 -follow this stream down some little way, for it has 

 evidently cut a very deep channel. A little 

 further dnwn I was shown the place where there 

 ODce stood a mill, the mill pond appearing to-day 

 as a hollow. Also just below there ;ire indications 

 of a fairly large pond. Both of these have been 

 left high and dry, the stream having cut deeply 

 into the earth. The chalk hill in the distance, 

 although a bit isolated, is part of the North Downs. 

 If we take a trip along the foot of these hills west- 

 wards towards Ashford, several sprinjs will be 

 •crossed, and to consider the amount of mineral 

 matter in solution and matter in suspension being 

 carried down by each one of these streams into 

 the river day and night, year after year, gradually 

 levelling down the land to build out at sea, 

 reminds us what a powerful instrument of 

 Nature water is. As we near Ashford the face of 

 the Downs turns at an angle towards Wye. The 

 same thiner happens with the escarpment coming 

 fromCharing,furming a triangular piece of alluvium 

 deposit through which therivernow meanders. The 

 Wye Downs may be seen weathered down to the 

 valley of the river and the faint outline on the left 

 reprt^sents the Downs at Eastwell, which were once 

 ■continuous across to Wye Downs. Here the river 

 has taken a northern course and in following it up 

 we face the valley through the Downs which the 

 river has cut, but glancing at the river to-day in its 

 old age, flowing so slowly that it does not e'en 

 move enough stone or mud to the sea to keep its 

 path straight, we remember that the power of a 

 river depends upon the quantity of its water and 

 the pace at which it flows along, and the greater 

 these be, the greater the effect of the moving 

 water ; then put the river back to its earliest level, 

 something like 1,000 feet at this part higher than 

 its level to-day, and complete the strata behind, 

 then everything favours the impression that the 

 Stour in its young days was lively and full of 

 mischief, scooping out the pictorial valley which 

 lies between Ashford and Canterbury. Now, such 

 an occurrence as this, rivers cutting valleys, often 

 happens, and the height, shape, and all the 

 characteristics of these hills depend upon the 

 material of which they are composed. As an 

 -extreme case, we might think of the canyons of 

 Colorado, where valleys exist as gorges, having 



almost perpendicular cliffs of hard rock over 

 4,000 feet in depth, or, as we have heard at these 

 meetings, how the Alps hold up their heads resist- 

 ing the forces of Nature through the compression 

 which the strata have received. But not so with 

 our chalk hills ; perhaps they have not the 

 grandeur of the canyois of Colorado or the Alps 

 of Switzerland, but they have a charm all their 

 own, being chalk which is easily worked upon by 

 all the forces of Nature, weather hacked, and 

 assume a round topped dome shape form. Wye 

 Downs are well-known I think to most of us, and 

 no doubt all who have climbed the hill from Wye, 

 if it has been a clear day, have enjoyed the vieW 

 across the Stour valley. In the distince.a few miles 

 across the valley, may be seen the continuance of 

 the North Downs, and this shows us how busy 

 our river has been in carrying away this enormooe 

 quantity of material from the catchment basin. 

 The river we find meandering aloog through the 

 valJey. one glance back from Wye Bridge over the 

 vast alluvial deposit and then through several 

 beautiful estates — Olantigh, Godmeraham, and 

 Chilbam Castle. Our river to-day has got 

 far beyond the stage when it would 

 occupy the whole breadth of the valley, but 

 now, under natural laws, our river, so long as man 

 will allow, meanders about in its alluvial bt^. 

 When the water which ran from the upheaved 

 Weald had found its course and begun to cut its 

 valley no doubt it would be contr Ued by exactly 

 the sau.e laws which we find rivers so true to to- 

 day. The first thing such a stream would do 

 would be to go deeper and deeper into its 

 bed, and this would diminish its slope. As it 

 diminishes its slope it tends more to curve and 

 then the valleys begin to change their outline. 

 The sides are no longer vertical, but began to 

 slope under the influence of the forces of Nature. 

 And then came the time possibly when the Stour 

 by cairying dnwn sand and mud from higher 

 levels deposited it in its valley and so raised its 

 bed, depositing the alluvial bed through which it 

 meanders. When a river has so adjusted its 

 slope that it neither deepens its bed in the upper 

 cour=e nor deposits material, it is said to have 

 acquired its regimen j here again it seems difficult 

 to realise anything different to the mere aimless 

 flowing along of our river, and historical matter 

 does not help one in the least, tor within histori- 

 cal times, say since Julius Ctesar landed on our 

 coast, no doubt our river has changed very little. 

 Nor is it likely that our river has reached its 

 regimen for the first time, but most likely it has 

 reached this peaceful state, and each time, either 

 by a fresh elevation, or perhaps the removal of a 

 barrier, has increased the fall; and yet in ages to 

 come who can say (although there are n« signs of 

 an upheavel or sinking within historical times) 

 perhaps the regimen will again be destroyed, then 

 again would it cut into its bed and leave the level 

 on which we stand as a terrace on the side of the 

 chalk hills, to weather back as terraces have 

 done until, as in most cases, they disappear 

 altogether. We are now nearing Canterbury, 

 and anyone who has walked along the river 

 bank from Wye must have enjoyed the scenery. 

 As we approach Canterbury we will step into the 



