310 PEOF. HULL, LL.D., I'.R.S., ON THE SUBMEEGED TERRACES 



which 1 have on the present • occasion proposed to my- 

 self for investigation, at the northern end of the Bay of 

 Biscay, but I do not doubt that the features here described 

 are continued still further south.* From wliat has been 

 stated it will be seen that throughout a Hue of coast of GOO 

 or 700 miles we have a remarkably uniform succession of 

 features, consisting of a gently sloping submerged terrace, 

 stretching out from the coast to a variable distance, but 

 which, on reaching a depth of 100 to 200 fathoms, 

 breaks oft" in what would be a grand escarpment of 7,000 to 

 8,000 feet, if viewed from the outer ocean. Such regularity 

 of features through so great a distance cannot be regarded, 

 as accidental ; it points to uniformity of cause and mode of 

 production. It is to a terrestrial surface we must have 

 recourse for the explanation of the physical conditions here 

 described. We are familiar with examples of plateaux 

 bounded by escarpments leading down into plains both 

 in the British Islands and in other countries. We have a 

 familiar example in the Cotteswold Hills of Gloucester 

 and Somerset ; in the range of the Jura ; in the range 

 overlooking the Delta of the Nile above the plains of Egypt. 

 All these terraced escarpments have been formed ou the sur- 

 face of emergent lands ; they are absolutely terrestrial, not 

 sub-oceanic in their origin ; and in ascribing a similar origin 

 to those here under consideration, we are only drawing 

 a logical deduction from the premises laid down. In a word, 

 this grand terraced escarpment of the British Isles must 

 have been formed during a period of emergence of the 

 whole region to an extent of several thousand feet above 

 the surface of the ocean, as it is at the present day, and 

 of subsequent submergence, during which the Atlantic 

 waves, driven by prevalent winds, have undermined the 

 cliffs of rock. Professor James Geikie has recognised the 

 generally abrupt descent of the continental plateau, but 

 does not appear to have recognised that such features must 

 have had a terrestrial origin.f 



* This statement I have since verified by an examination of the 

 Admiralty chart oyer the Bay of Biscay, which affords most interesting 

 results, especially in the determination of the channels of the rivers 

 Loire and Adour traversing the platform, and descending through deep 

 canons to the base of the great escarpment, and I hope, ere long, to have 

 an opportunity of making these results public. — E. H. (April, 1898.) 



t Address to Geographical Section, Brit. Assoc, 1892. Froc. Roy. 

 Geog. Soc, Sept. 1892, p. 639. The author however, clearly describes the 



