published respecting Aiitrim, Demj, &c. 359 



proved these beneath, (confirmation of which might be 

 easily obtained, from the principles laid down in my Der- 

 byshire Report, i. 139, and your 33d vol. p. 263), and to 

 have shown, that none of these derangements materially 

 affect the form of the surface, but that what remains to 

 complete the pile on the sunk side of a fault, is, as in the 

 case of the numerous hummocks, the proper and undis- 

 turbed upper strata, that on the other side the line of fault, 

 are carried off and gone ! ; all this I cannot doubt but he 

 might have shown, from my undevialing experience, and 

 that of all the many practical Colliers with whom I have 

 conversed: but I caution Dr. R. against suffering modern 

 slips of piles of strata, either into the Sea or the valleys, 

 from being unfairly urged as objections to this most asto- 

 nishing and important Geological fact, with which I be- 

 lieve no theorv-maker before my time was acquainted, or 

 if so, they seem culpably to have suppressed it. 



On a subject connected herewith, [ ca.nnot help again 

 noticing the seeming i:iconsistcncy of Dr. R. with respect 

 to the .slight Tablets of hard Strata, if not " Stony ridges," 

 to be seen and most assiduously attended to, in surveying 

 denudated di'jtricts, as 1 have mentioned, vol. xxxiii. p. 26^.; 

 and which he seems fully to admit, in the iTiention of these 

 stony ridges, vol. xxxiii. p. 107 and 109 : and their effects 

 on the outlines of the summits, or dorsa, of long ridges, 

 Mr. D.'s App. p. 43 : and again, " the form of our surface, 

 and the shapes of our hills, depend more than we are aware 

 of, on the materials composing them "App. p. 4Q : and 

 vet, the improper manner of expressing the 3d of Dr. R.'s 

 Geological facts (vol. xxxiii. p. 112) '* and our surface it- 

 self are uncoimecied with, and 2/.naffectcd by the arrange- 

 ment of the strata below them," remains yet uncorrected, 

 and in Mr. D.'s App. p. -10, Dr. R. even says, that an ob- 

 server " finds the arrangements of the component strata 

 have not the slightest influcncf. on the /or?/? of our surface : 

 that its fiiiure is governed by their removals, not their po- 

 sitions ; that the materials which once formed it, have been 

 carried off irregalurhj and, for anglit we can see, caprici' 

 ously." What ! could not the writer discover indelible marks 

 of infinite iviulom rather than caprice, in the almighty sculp- 

 tor of the Antrim stratified block ? (to use his own excellent 

 metaphor, App. p. 41, 40, &c.), which has so fashioned 

 its diversified or " coUivallian " surface, that scarcely owy 

 part thereof can be found, without a connected descent for 

 ell the waters from its surface ! 

 The stony Ridges, or edges and parts of the tops, of harder 



biiata 



