212 



before Farey. While Farey showed a correct knowledge of the 

 order of superposition of the Wealden rocks, his drawing exhibited 

 the most striking contrast to the slightly-curved and gently-flowing 

 lines which would have been displayed in any approximation to 

 the actual arrangement. On the contrary, the strata appeared to 

 be broken up by dislocatians at intervals of a kW hundred yards, 

 andjbeds far below the uppermost strata were shown rising almost 

 to the surface in the intervals between the disjointed blocks of 

 upper rock. Some alluvium, also, was shown in its true place as 

 regards the surface, but appeared to be ended laterally by faults 

 on each side, and to extend downwards many hundreds of feet. 

 No section is drawn by the author in Hutchinson ; but his remarks 

 show a similar mixture of superficial truth with utter want of insight 

 •into geological structure. His account of the nature and dip of 

 the various rocks is perfectly true, but any attempt at section- 

 drawing would have been no advance on Farey's. After stating 

 that while the freestone N. of the limestone dips northward, the 

 limestone and the stone southward of it dip to the S.E., he naively 

 remarks : — " What a strange diversity in nature must be here, 

 where these various strata nearly approach each other ! " And 

 later, referring to the patch of (Permian) flaggy red sandstone* 

 brought in again by a fault a little southward of the limestone, he 

 says: — "They appear to be a stray strata (sic) of stone, but lie 

 similar to the other freestone quarries." Of the limestone he states 

 that while "in all probability it continues across the country from 

 sea to sea, in a direction nearly E.N.E.; it is less than one hundred 

 yards in width where it shows itself at Choke Beck." No attempt 

 at any explanation of the relations of these various beds to each 

 other is given. Of course a much more modern geologist might 

 easily make a mistake in explaining a section in which (as in this 

 case) both a fault and an unconformity are present. But the 

 remarks quoted from Hutchinson, like the section drawn by Farey, 

 show that to men with their notions of geological structure no 

 explanation was possible. A junior student of geology stated a 

 year or two ago, in an examination, that unconformities existed 

 * See Trans. Cunib. Assoc, Part VII. pp. 82-S4. 



