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LI V. On the Geological Features of the Eastern Coast ofEntr- 

 land; and concluding Remarks on Mr. ^ohherds's Hypothesis 

 By R. C. Taylor, Esq. F.G.S. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Annals. 

 Gentlemen, 

 /^ ONCLUDING that the observations of Mr. Robberds 

 ^^ had terminated in the preceding Number of the Phil. 

 Mag., I annexed some comments thereon in my communica- 

 tion of last month. Without extending the discussion by the 

 introduction of new matter, I will now, with your permission, 

 limit myself to a few remarks necessarily suggested by Mr. Rob- 

 berds's second paper. 



By adopting in some instances a nomenclature which ap- 

 pears applicable to the case, I am certainly open to the charo-e 

 of adhesion to the modern school of geology. Most English 

 geologists have, for the sake of convenience, but without 

 thereby pledging themselves to individual speculations, agreed 

 on the principal terms by which to distinguish certain forma- 

 tions ; and amongst others, I am well content to employ these 

 terms in the sense in which they are generally applied. 



But still, in the investigation into which he has entered, 

 " Mr. Taylor has surrendered his judgement to authority," 

 p. 276. Here I acknowledge no authority but that of my own 

 personal observation. The ground was probably not untrod 

 by geological observers ; but their views, whatever they mi^ht 

 be, were unrecorded*. Unshackled by pi-ecedent or by con- 

 flicting systems, I have demonstrated the general continuity 

 and extension of the crag formation, beyond the possibility of 

 doubt in my own mind, or, I think, in that of those who may 

 follow up the investigation. I have not, « because there are 

 beds of shells at Harwich and others at Cromer," decided from 

 that circumstance merely, that these must be extremities of 

 the same strata ; but I have, step by step, with no little labour, 

 during the last seventeen years, examined and identified nearly 

 the whole intermediate area; and, in reviewing the data by 

 which I have been governed, have no more distrust of tlie 

 fact than of the prevalence of clay in Essex, or of sand on 

 Bagshot-heath. 



* Injustice I ought to except the name of William Smith, the first to 

 depict the strata with which the surface of this island is diversified, and the 

 first to discover and apply that remarkable rule by wiiich their identity is 

 cstablijiied. 



But 



