• [ 166 ] 



XXIV. Additional Observations on the Anticlinal Line of the 

 London and Hampshire Basins. By P. J. Martin, Esq., F.G.S. 



[Continued fi'om vol. ii. p. 477-] 



To Richard Taylor, Esq. 

 Dear Sir, 



EVERYTHING I have ventured to publish on the geology 

 of the "Weald denudation having appeared in your Journal, 

 I am naturally desirous you should give place to some short 

 observations as an appendix to the series of papers you were so 

 kind as to print for me two years ago. 



In doing this, I shall avoid as much as possible all discussion 

 of a controversial character ; and I leave the appropriation of any 

 discovery, or the merit of priority of observation, to those who 

 think such mattei's worth contending for. 



What I have now to say wovild have been advanced long ago, 

 but I was given to understand that it was probable a meeting of 

 the British Association would shortly take place at Brighton. 

 In that hope I waited, prepared to discuss on the spot some of 

 the most interesting questions bearing on the subject, and on 

 the highly illustrative phsenomena of that locality. 



The workers in the field of inquiry offered by the anticlinal 

 line of the London and Hampshire basins, and especially of that 

 part of it which relates to the Weald denudation, seem pretty 

 well agreed as to structural arrangement. Of the agents that 

 have been at work in effecting the changes here exhibited, and 

 of their modus agendi, there is still great diflFerence of opinion ; 

 and of the phsenomena of Drift, now engaging so much public 

 attention, thei*e exists, and perhaps will continue to exist for 

 some time to come, much contrariety of sentiment. It is to this 

 point I shall chiefly address myself. But as a preliminary step, 

 I will first briefly recapitulate the arguments, or rather enume- 

 rate the natural appearances in favour of the necessary relation 

 of the various phfenomena of denudation, and with which I con- 

 sider evei'y kind of drift to be most intimately connected. 



Let any man look at the left-hand corner of Mr. Greenough's 

 map, and consider the surface arrangement of the immense area 

 comprised in the elevation of this great anticlinal, and the still 

 greater area of the countries which must necessarily have been 

 fashioned by it. No man who does not take this periscopic 

 view, and who cannot comprehend the phsenomena here exhibited 

 in their totality, is qualified justly to interpret any part of them. 

 The key to the whole is in the conception of the contemporaneity 

 of upheaval and denudation ; not a piecemeal elevation of one 

 subordinate anticlinal and another subordinate anticlinal, the 

 excavation of one or of many valleys, or the accumulation of this 



