76 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



pages in nature's book which lie open at our feet, and which it 

 is our privilege to read if we will. The study of it is wide 

 and far-reaching, for, in the evolution, or development, of the 

 Trent, we have a clue to the history of many another river 

 and stream ; and, by the aid of the new and strong light 

 thrown on the subject by Prof. Davis, in his recent admirable 

 paper, we shall be able to trace the birth of many an inland 

 escarpment, valley, and plain, the origin of which is at present 

 unaccountable, or, to say the least, obscure. 



NOTE. In connexion with this subject and Prof. Davis' paper, an article, which 

 appears in the July number of the Royal Geographical Soc. Mag. for this year, was 

 read before that Society on the 23rd March last, by J. E. Marr, F.R.S., Sec. Geol. 

 Soc., on " The Waterways of English Lakeland," in which he alludes to river 

 action, and speaks of the origin and diversion of the Lune and Eden in that district j 

 and in the discussion which took place after the reading of the paper, Mr. W. T. 

 Blanford, F.R.S., Treasurer of the Geol. Soc., said : 



"The history of the river valleys is one of the questions of modern geology, a 

 question which has arisen within my recollection, and which was almost ignored by 

 many of the great geologists 50 years ago." ..." Rivers are of very ancient 

 origin } in many cases they are older than the mountains they traverse. All sorts of 

 explanations have been adopted for the fact that a great many rivers run across 

 mountains from side to side, and there is no doubt that all sorts of explanations may 

 be necessary, because the fact is an extraordinary one. A very simple explanation, 

 but a most obvious one when fully conceived, is the simple fact that the river existed 

 before the mountains, and as elevation gradually took place, the river kept its way, 

 cutting through the mountains. Two of the most extraordinary cases known are 

 those of the Indus and Bramaputra, cutting through the Himalayas, and actually 

 running from one side to the other of the biggest mountains in the world, and that 

 this is so is probably due to the fact that the rivers were there before the mountains 

 existed." . . . "I think that, as a contribution to the history of rivers, Mr. 

 Marr's paper is of particular interest, because he shows not only how the rivers 

 make their valleys, but also how rivers change their courses." 



Dr. H. Woodward, F.R.S., late President of the Geol. Soc., who also spoke, said : 



"One of the things that strikes one most is the way in which rivers have 

 continued to hold certain directions through great changes in the denudation of the 

 country." 



Dr. H. R. Mill said : " It must have struck some, when Mr. Marr described 

 rivers wandering over the country, and valleys working backwards to behead and 

 capture the waters of other rivers, that the land is in a very much less stable 

 condition than they had been in the habit of thinking." . . . . "In America 

 Prof. W. Morris Davis, and in France Prof, de Lapperent, had elaborated a method 

 of studying these phenomena, and I am pleased to see that Mr. Marr, while acting 

 independently in the same direction as these gentlemen, has, for purposes of popular 

 description, avoided their terminology. In its proper place, the theoretical elucidation 

 of practical problems, a precise terminology is essential, and in introducing one for 

 such purposes Prof. Davis has rendered an inestimable service." 



Mr. H. J. Mackinder, Reader in Geography at Oxford, who is one of the 

 members of the Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union, said : 



"There is one point which struck me in what Dr. Mill said just now by way of 

 commendation of Mr. Marr, that he had avoided the use of the terms with which 

 Prof. Davis had equipped this branch of the subject. I agree with him that this 



