Proceedings. clix 
harder beds form a series of steep escarpments, or sharp ele- 
vations, always looking towards the centre of the area; while the 
softer beds form valleys, plains, or undulating country between 
them. 
The lecture then gave an interesting theoretical account of the 
laying down of the enormous masses of rock, beginning with a 
great river flowing eastwards from an ancient land (which 
extended far to the north-west beyond the present limits of 
Ireland), and pouring its waters into a narrow sea or gulf, which 
would at first be brackish. As the sea bottom was continually 
subsiding, more and more deep-sea conditions would prevail, till 
the profound depths of the chalk period prevailed. After a 
thousand feet of chalk had accumulated, subsidence would be 
succeeded by elevation, the dome of the weald would be formed 
only to be cut down as it emerged from the level of the waters, 
and afterwards carved into its present form by the action of 
streams, &c. The lecture then dealt in considerable detail with 
the various constituents of the lower greensand, indicating their 
local characteristics and the physical features of the country 
thereby conditioned. These topics were freely illustrated by 
lantern slides. The most generally interesting were the results 
of a landslip at Sandgate in 1893. This was caused by a sliding 
of the absorbent Folkestone beds upon the impermeable Sandgate 
beds beneath them, after an unusually heavy rainfall. A long 
series of slides illustrated the damage done to houses and the 
displacements of the ground, both giving appearances very sug- 
gestive of an earthquake, as, indeed, was at first thought to 
have happened. A small series of slides taken from Hast Wear 
Bay, near Folkestone, illustrated the effect upon the contour of 
the land by the gault underlying the chalk. These showed the 
railway cutting in the Warren, and the upheaval of the foreshore 
produced by the impaction of immense masses of earth during 
the landslip. The lecture concluded with a very fine series of 
photographs of fossils from the chalk, gault, and lower greensand. 
Some remarks on the various points of the lecture by the President 
and Mr. Whitaker brought the proceedings to an end. 
On April 2nd an excursion was conducted by Mr. J. H. Baldock 
to Kew Gardens, and was partly of a general and partly of a 
photographic character. He reports as follows :—‘‘ The afternoon 
was dull and rather windy, which militated against the success of 
the photographers. Nevertheless some pictures, notably of the 
Bamboo Garden, were obtained. After a stroll through the Arbo- 
retum, the party visited the Orchid House, the Succulent House, 
and other houses, finishing up with the always interesting Rock 
Garden, The number of members attending was eleven,”’ 
