108 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



small fragments by what are called ' faults,' (cracks 

 and consequent disturbances of the strata,) that they 

 alone might be appealed to as sufficient proof; and, in- 

 deed, the very appearance of the smaller coal-fields of 

 the middle of England, lifted as they are far above 

 the great expanse of the new red sandstone, is due 

 solely to these under-ground movements, which have 

 borne to the surface portions of the carboniferous and 

 lower strata, that would otherwise have been hidden. 

 It is not unlikely that much of the general contour 

 of the high ground of England and many parts of 

 northern Europe was originally marked out during the 

 restless disturbances of this interval of violence. The 

 districts occupied by the mountain limestone and the 

 olde? rocks, at least, have probably in later times been 

 disturbed only by movements affecting the general 

 level of large tracts ; and there cannot be a question as 

 to the intensity and continuance of the forces acting 

 beneath the surface at that time having been then 

 much greater than any that have since affected that 

 portion of the earth's crust exposed for investigation 

 in our own island. 



These remarks apply chiefly to the physical geo- 

 graphy and geology of England, but they also de- 

 scribe with very little modification a large propor- 

 tion of all those tracts in which the carboniferous 

 and older rocks appear. Exceptions, it is true, are 

 not wanting; and a very interesting one is met with in 

 Russia, where various rocks of this first epoch stretch 

 over a vast extent of country, and seem to have 

 been little disturbed, except by exceedingly slow move- 

 ments of elevation, since they were originally deposited. 

 We shall find hereafter, that, on the one hand, similar 



