Chalk Strata of Ballard Head. 



467 



We have now only to conceive the same elevatory process 

 and straining to continue in the same direction; and the con- 

 sequences would be, that, whilst the whole mass of chalk, and 

 the tertiary beds above the northern edge, would gradually 

 acquire a degree of vertical elevation en masse, such as it can 

 be shown they now have, above their former submarine level, 

 the fallen portions of the beds below the fault would acquire 

 a motion upwards, in the direction of their vertical position, 

 as represented by the dotted lines in fig. 51. 



The certain effect of this process would be, not only to 

 squeeze the broken beds together, but, in the process of 

 heaving, the southern portions would, by their truncated 

 edges, catch the sloping beds along the line of fault, and 

 raise them upwards, till a curve should be formed exactly as 

 we now see it ; so that the position of the beds would be as 

 represented in Jig. 51., which is but a theoretical represent- 

 ation of that taken from nature, in Jig. 37. 



V \ 6 v * V \ 



_ I 



_^_ 







~V \ i i K^ v ' 



Joints betokening the existence of the fault. 



* Present line of the top of the cliff. 



That this is the correct view of the case may be further 

 proved by the fact (accurately represented in Mr. Webster's 

 27th plate, and copied into our Jig. 37.), that there are in the 

 vertical beds a series of joints nearly at right angles to the 

 line of fault, and forming sloping declivities along the cliff, 

 on which a few plants have taken root ; these joints being 

 nothing else than the parallels to the great fault brought into 

 the position they now occupy, and which I have represented 

 injg. 51. by the lines a, /3, y, 8, e. 



The above explanation accounts for the curved strata oc- 

 M m 2 



