the London and Hampshire Basins. 113 



the applicability of the objections founded on these appearances, 

 and more especially as they gain force by the late discovery of 

 some remarkable fossils at Shepperton near Salisbury, and of the 

 vegetable remains buried in drift at Peasemarsh*. These, with 

 the beach of doubtful date at Brighton, although they alter 

 nothing as to the agencies of denudation, and of their mode of 

 operation, bespeak the lapse of more time, of a longer rest in the 

 intervals of violence ; in fact, bespeak the occurrence of a diluvial 

 epoch rather than of a single catastrophe. I accept, therefore, 

 these evidences as a happy corroboration of my views. Par- 

 oxysmal renewals of convulsion, moreover, accord well with my 

 sentiments respecting the frequent manufacture of " brick-earth " 

 on tlie spot, wh(l;re it is found, by the amalgamation of the sands 

 a:id clays there, the impaction of gravels, whether of newer or 

 older date, and other signs of a tumultuary stratification, only 

 to be explained on the supposition of the repeated transit to and 

 fro of diluvial currents. 



Although amongst the first exponents of a diluvial theory based 

 on local dislocation and terraqueous commotion, I did not long 

 remain its solitary advocate. Dr. Buckland, in his earliest spe- 

 culations on valleys of elevation, regards the removal of the broken 

 materials as the work of " the Deluge," with which his mind was 

 then preoccupied. In 1828 I published my first sketch of the 

 Weald denudation, in which I foreshadowed the union of dis- 



* On a former occasion I spoke doubtingly of these appearances, for 

 two reasons : first, because I have repeatedly seen the bottoms of drift-beds 

 cleared out in all parts of the Weald area without meeting with such a 

 chance ; and secondly, because I have more than once caught myself in the 

 act of recording " false facts " of a similar character. 1 have seen many 

 feet of what 1 believed to be diluvial loam and sand removed, at the bottom 

 of a slope and near running waters, and have seen the workmen come 

 unexpectedly on a buried peat-bog. This 1 too hastily concluded was of 

 ancient date ; for I found soon after, that amongst the remarkable objects 

 brought to me from this peat-bog, were a fragment of Roman tile and a 

 sculptured stoue. 



But Mr. Godwin- Austen has now mapped the district in which he found 

 these vegetable remains', and I accept his evidence with much thankful- 

 ness, — as a diluvial epoch is much more agreeable to nature than any other 

 solution of the ditticulty. 



Exception has been taken to the use of the word "diluvial" as obsolete, 

 and the agency of which it is the exponent is no longer recognized in geology. 

 The language of geological dynamics does not us yet atiord a better word : 

 " wave of transition " or " earthquake -wave " are both too i)eviphrastie to 

 be usedadjectively ; I therefore atlhere to the more fluent " (lihivial." The 

 idea it embodies as an agent of denudation will also not easily tind a better 

 expression. 



' Journal of Geological Society, vol. xi. p. 114. 

 Phil Maij. S. 4. Vol. 13. No. 84. Feb. 1857. 



