Geology of England and Wales. 143 
five and twenty years’ assiduous labour and study; and to Mr. 
Greenough, who, in 1819, published a map upon the same plan, 
but considerably improved as to minuteness and accuracy of 
detail. We could have wished, however, that the latter gen- 
tleman, instead of treading so closely upon Mr. Smith’s plan, 
had given us the result of his accurate and diligent inquiries 
in the form of county maps; these might have been upon a 
larger scale, and would have admitted of all those minutize 
which render his map, valuable as it is, confused in its details, 
and laborious to consult. 
The concluding portion of this introductory chapter, which 
relates to the connexion of geology with natural and revealed 
religion, we could have wished either altogether omitted, or 
more fully and competently discussed; but in relation to this 
subject we shall only refer our readers to Mr. Granville Penn’s 
Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaic Geologies, a 
work abounding in sound doctrines, founded upon close rea- 
soning, and admirably opposed to the tampering facility of 
some writers, and the scepticism and incredulity of others. 
Our authors commence their work with an account, com- 
prised in five chapters, of the Formations above the Chalk ; 
these they call the “ superior order,” and had they strictly 
adhered to their plan of arrangement, they should have started 
at the surface, with the sandy deposits of rivers and streams ; 
the accretions of springs; the accumulation of shingle along the 
sea-coast; the production of marsh-land, and other similar 
phenomena, which appear to have proceeded uninterruptedly, 
as at present, “‘ from the period when our continents assumed 
their present form, and the actual system of what may be called 
geological causes, began to operate.” They should also have 
given us the history of the beds of gravel, so remarkable for 
the remains of land animals of extinct species. They observe, 
however, in regard to these alluvial and diluvial deposits, 
that their history is so intimately connected with that of the 
strata which they cover, that it would scarcely be intelligible 
without reference to the parent rocks ; they therefore refer the 
whole to an appendix, and defer it to the second volume. 
The strata, properly so called, which lie above the chalk, 
consist of various beds of sand, clay, marl, and imperfectly 
consolidated limestone ; these are every where bounded by a 
ridge of chalk, (except where the sea-coast interferes), which 
slanting off below the above-mentioned substances, forms a large 
concave area in which they seem to have been deposited, and 
hence the term chalk basin, of which the most northerly includes 
the metropolis, and has been called the London basin, while the 
southern is less properly termed the Isle of Wight basin, since 
it includes only the northern half of that island, which is tra- 
versed east and west by the edge of the basin. 
