with Observations on the study of TeiTaces. 3 



Mr- Chambers introduces the subject with the following 



statements. 



"The most familiar phenomenon connected with this subject is the 

 existence of stripes, as well as broad expanses of low land, bordering 

 on the sea; in many districts, of a very equable surface; sometimes 

 of sandy, sometimes of clayey composition ; occasionally presenting 

 beds of shells : comprehending, in short, the great bulk of those flat 

 tracts which have been — usually on account of the latter feature — re- 

 cognized as ancient beaches; comprehending, also, the well-known 

 corses of Scotland, as well as those still lower sandy tracts near the 

 sea, called in our country links y and in England downs. The class of 

 lands so described may be said to form an irregular fragmentary belt- 

 ing round the island, strikingly distinct from the higher grounds which 

 rise inland — generally of great agricultural value, and remarkable as 

 forming the sites of many of the principal towns of the empire, or of 

 iarge portions of them. As they almost every where tell a plain tale 

 as to their former submergence by the sea, the idea may the more nat- 

 urally occur, that, were they by any accident re-immersed, a very im- 

 portant deduction would be made from the geographical area, and still 

 more from the productive resources, of our island. 



" As striking examples of this class of lands, I may point to the sea- 



side plain stretching for several miles on both sides of Chichester ; to the 

 similar plain extending along the south shore of the Bristol Channel, 

 between Weston-super-Mare and Bridgewater ; and to the broad ex- 

 panse of low land in Lincolnshire and other parts of eastern England. 

 The carses along the Forth and Tay — vast alluvial plains, — the low 

 gravelly lands of Moray, and the alluvial grounds skirting the Clyde 

 near Glasgow, are examples of equally signal character in the northern 



part of the island* 



M It may, I believe, be safely said, that a sea 41 feet above the pres- 

 ent would cover the whole of the districts referred to, excepting, per- 

 haps, a few patches. The base of the comparatively steep ground ris- 

 ing from the interior line of these plains and stripes, even when they 

 reach the highest grade of height, is usually at about that elevation above 

 the sea, or a little lower. An immersion, therefore, to this extent would 

 leave us with new coasts, not only much circumscribed, but considera- 

 bly different from the present — for one thing, much bolder. It would 

 also deprive us oi the sites of the lower parts of London, Bristol, Liv- 

 erpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Inverness, and of the entire 

 sites of Portsmouth, Southampton and Chichester, of Hull, Dumfries, 

 Greenock, Leith, and Perth. The same submersion, extended to the 

 Continent, would blot no small space from the map of Europe. 



" Where we have large expanses of these low lands, the flatness is 

 usually very striking. For instance, in an extensive plain beside the 

 Bristol Channel, the equability is so great over large areas, that the 

 Exeter Railway passes over it for twenty-eight miles (from Ashton 

 Water to Claverham Court), with a gradual rise of only four feet ; and 

 even this perhaps is to be attributed to the lines taking an oblique course 

 athwart the plain, and against its seaward declination. Such equability 

 makes the land almost the rival of the sea in the trueness of its surface 



