26 
views of this sort and the pendulum swinging back again, 
for to use the words of Professor Huxley, the extreme 
“ Uniformitarianism” which Professor Ball attacks has long 
been as much a “creed outworn” as “Plutonism” or 
“Neptunism.”* Ifin the latter way, it would he the result 
of processes carried on through the long lapse of past ages, similar 
in degree to what is constantly going on now in the crust of 
the earth, and would be called uniformitarian action, supple- 
mented at the last by catastrophic action; for unless the 
earth’s attraction was somewhat less in those days than it is 
at present, the point must at last have been reached when 
the beds lost their perpendicular or inclined position and 
tumbled over by the force of gravity. And so finally a 
catastrophe was brought about. 
Having thus given you a sketch of the difficulties to be 
explained, I will proceed to the more immediate object of 
this communication. 
In a paper contributed by Horace B. Woodward, F.G.S., of 
the Geological Survey of England, to the Geological Magazine 
for 1871, p. 149, and entitled ‘Remarks upon Inversions 
of Carboniferous Strata in Somersetshire,” an attempt is made 
to explain the remarkable inversion of strata (indicated by 
the working of coal under the Mountain Limestone at Vobster) 
by a complicated series of folds and faults, and a 
very ingenious “Diagram section,” on page 153, which 
it must be confessed is somewhat difficult to follow, is given 
in illustration of his view. Thus, whilst admitting this to 
be an inversion or turning over of the beds, he hesitates to 
accept the theory that the strata were so doubled over to 
the north as to bring the Mountain Limestone above the Coal 
Measures, and asks for facts to show that the main ridge was 
folded over. One of the difficulties which he thought had 
BS 2 a ee ee 
*Nat., Vol. xxv., p. 241. 
