50 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB I90I 
east and west, in accordance with the dominant folding of 
the rocks. The water-parting would seem to have been 
formed by the great anticlinal system, whose denuded 
foundations remain as the Mendip Hills. It was along this 
axis that the folding was most intense, and the land was 
consequently raised to its highest point. Towards the east 
the line of disturbance extended for hundreds of miles, 
and is still prominent in the chain of the Ardennes.’ In 
the westerly direction it passed along the line of the Bristol 
Channel, and was probably continued for an unknown 
distance into the south of what is now Ireland and 
beyond. 
From the Mendip Hills to the Permian strata of the 
Midlands we measure about 70 miles,* which would be the 
breadth of the slope drained by the rivers that began to 
shape the scenery of our area. These streams carried 
down sediment into the waters of the large lake? or inland 
sea where the Permian rocks were in process of formation. 
To understand how rivers could run down a surface of 
strata which now indicate considerable contortion, with 
anticlines sometimes crossing the direction of flow, we 
must keep in mind two things—the action of wave-denu- 
dation, and the extreme slowness of the movements of 
contortion. During the emergence of the land from the 
sea or inland lake in which the highest Coal Measures of 
the area were deposited, a certain amount of wave-action 
was inevitable. The new land-surface being probably 
composed of unconsolidated, or partially consolidated, 
sediments, would be easily modified by the waves, which 
would tend to plane off inequalities and produce an even 
surface. The process of emergence would be very gradual, 
and when the land had risen above the reach of the waves, 
rt Godwin-Austen, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., Vol. xxii, p. 38. 
2 Fifty miles, if the Haffield Breccia is Permian. 
3 Jukes-Browne, “ The Building of the British Isles,” 1892, p. 160, 
