Ivi. WEST PURBECK MEETING. 



original impress from the great squeeze on which I have already 

 spoken.- It is a purely geological question, and I ought not to 

 dwell too much upon it before a general audience. But, until 

 you realise the meaning of the synclinal, you will not be able to 

 understand what I am going to say about Creech Barrow itself. 

 The hills in the southern half of the Isle of Purbeck are com- 

 posed of beds which dip towards the north, and this dip 

 increases as we approach the long chalk ridge, so that in some 

 places it is nearly vertical. The Chalk passes right underneath 

 the Tertiary clays and sands hundreds of feet below the surface, 

 and the same Chalk crops up again in the Dorset Downs which 

 you see facing you. That gives you an idea of what a true 

 stratigraphical synclinal is. That synclinal, no doubt, has been 

 the ruling guide of the drainage system ever since these hills 

 were upraised, and there may possibly be some traces of the 

 original base or axis of that synclinal. It may be sought in 

 that great extent of plateau gravel which lies between the North 

 and South rivers, and is very well developed in the neighbour- 

 hood of Binnegar. The Wareham Waterworks, or what are 

 intended for them, are at the very end of it. This gravelly 

 plateau represents, I believe, the bottom of the original 

 synclinal. All the other features have been developed more 

 or less by denudation, by the action of rain, frost, snow, rivers, 

 and so forth, which have moulded and sculptured the hills as we 

 see them now. For we must not suppose that the hills are 

 everlasting, although that is a fine poetic statement. "The 

 everlasting hills" is only a figure of speech. All these hills, 

 as we see them now, have been moulded since Middle Tertiary 

 times, and the process is going on still. If anybody had 

 been on top of Creech Barrow, as I was last Wednesday, 

 they would pretty soon learn what denudation means. It 

 came down remarkably straight. (Mr. Hudleston referred to 

 the day when over two inches of rain fell.) I will now 

 endeavour to apply the remarks already made to the elucidation 

 of the question of the origin of Creech Barrow, this picturesque 

 conical hill, which, seen in the distance from the valley of the 



