IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE. 151 



Shanklin, and Black Gang Chine, in the Isle of Wight. 



What then is the law governing this branch of physical 

 geography or geology, whichever term you like to apply 

 to the subject of enquiry ? We know it is not chance 

 or caprice that regulates the presence or absence of a 

 waterfall any more than the presence or absence of any 

 other natural phenomenon. " Freaks of nature " are terms 

 unknown to naturalists. We know that material laws are 

 so unchanged and unchangeable that the fact, once ascer- 

 tained, that there is no perpendicular fall of water in 

 North Staffordshire of, say, fifty feet, is equivalent to saying 

 that there could not by any possibility, consistently with 

 the other natural local phenomena in present or past times, 

 be such a waterfall within that area. Can we so decipher 

 the past and present condition of things as to read the 

 answer that exists beyond doubt to the question which I 

 now repeat to the North Staffordshire Field Naturalists 

 " Why are there no Waterfalls in North Staffordshire ? " 



I only venture to make a few suggestions by way of 

 indicating the direction in which the solution is to be 

 sought. From the moment the embryo stream trickles in 

 drops from a spring on the hill side, it is engaged in one 

 task ; not strictly in " hastening to the sea," as Longfellow 

 poetically expresses it, but rather in descending to the sea 

 level in the shortest possible course, a vertical line ; not 

 content with escaping down the natural or original face 

 of the hill, at an angle determined by causes independent 

 of and beyond its own control, it is for ever cutting, and 

 pounding, and tearing away the hill side. It is obvious 

 that if the angle of what I have termed the original face 

 of the hill is the same from the summit to the foot, and 

 the material of the hill itself is of uniform consistency or 



