ii. VALE OF RENNET. 21 



on which it is a wonder to perceive no effect of rain, and no 

 rivulets. One curious effect, however, of the latest watery action 

 of that still going on is the prevalence of flints scattered on 

 the surface of the ground, and, in some places, accumulated into 

 considerable beds. These flints are thus abundant because the 

 chalk has been dissolved away. In parts of the downs of Sussex 

 the quantity of flints lying in a bed on the chalk is very great, 

 and seems to imply that great thicknesses of the calcareous rock 

 have been carried away, so that the flints of many layers, which 

 were originally three feet apart, are now brought together. 



We come now to the last of the parallel vales referred to as 

 composing the system of Thames drainage the Vale of Kennet, 

 prolonged into the great estuarian plain which reaches to the 

 German Ocean. 



' The Kennet swift, for silver eels renown' d,' 



is remarkable among English streams for collecting its waters in 

 a synclinal basin of the chalk. It runs in fact between the downs 

 of Wilts and Berks on the north, and those of Wiltshire and 

 Hampshire on the south. From these downs on either hand the 

 chalk beds dip toward the intervening vale : the highest point in 

 the north, Upcot Beacon on Marlborough Downs, is 887 feet d ; the 

 most elevated summit in the south, Inkpen Beacon, near Highclere, 

 is 975 feet. From the north the inclination of the strata is gentle, 

 but from the south very steep, a continuation in fact from the 

 almost vertical ' Hogsback } near Guildford. 



In the upper part of the Vale of Kennet, about Marlborough, 

 there is abundance of flint gravel ; in the lower part, gravel de- 

 posits partly covered by peat, the whole presenting more analogy 

 to the Valley of the Somme in Picardy than occurs perhaps along 

 any other stream in England. Below Reading, the low land 

 increases in width between the bordering ridges of chalk; the 

 actual channel of the Thames deviates from the general line of the 

 vale, by entering the northern chalk hills at Henley, and holding 

 in them a picturesque and beautiful course to Maidenhead. Along 

 the whole of this route the borders of the narrow valley are occupied 

 at frequent intervals by gravel composed of flints from the neigh- 

 bourhood and stones rolled from a distance, and among them lie 



d Th3 famous White Horse Hill = 856 feet. 



