70 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



removed, so as to expose the underlying Wealden, 

 we should have chalk downs on the south and 

 north, with an intervening area of the inferior 

 beds denuded or laid bare by the removal of the 

 superincumbent strata. Such, in fact, would have 

 been the actual state of the South-east of England, 

 if the changes here contemplated had been pro- 

 duced by the wearing away of the chalk from the 

 underlying fluviatile sediments, and the horizon- 

 tali ty of the strata had been maintained. But 

 a careful examination of the phenomena under 

 review, shows that the removal of the chalk was 

 not effected by simple denudation, but by a force 

 acting from beneath, which elevated the entire 

 series of tertiary, cretaceous, and wealden forma- 

 tions in a line bearing a general direction from 

 east to west; by which movement an anticlinal* 

 position has been given to the strata on each 

 side the axis of greatest elevation. This axis is 

 denoted in the physical geography of the district 

 by the chain of hills called the Forest-range, that 

 extends from the sea-coast at Hastings through the 

 interior of the country by Crowborough, the highest 

 elevation, to Loxwood, west of Horsham, where the 

 Wealden disappears beneath the overlying green- 



AiiIk i.i.al— inclined towards each other, like the ridge-tiles of the roof 

 of a house. 



