TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 51 
GEOLOGY. 
7 
Address by Rosrrt A. C. Gopwin-AvsteEn, B.A., F.R.S., §c., President 
of the Section. 
Tue basin of the North Sea, in the physical changes which it has undergone since 
the commencement of the Kainozoic period, is an area which well repays the study 
of the geologist. Suffolk and Norfolk, which geologically, as they do ethnologically, 
form one region, are part of the slope of this basin on its western side; for the 
North-Sea valley is a true physical depression ; the whole secondary series of strata, 
on one side, dips eastwardly towards it, and rises again above the sea-level, on the 
opposite side, in Denmark. Itis a depression which dates back its origin to some 
distant time in geological history. 
It is to this area that I propose to restrict myself in those observations which, 
in compliance with established custom, I have to make in opening the meetings of 
this Section. 
The North -Sea depression, in its hydrographical features, deserves a passing 
notice. Compared with its breadth, its depth at present is exceedingly small. 
There are central portions where there are only twelve feet of water. The “ Deep- 
water Channel” of the charts, which runs parallel with the coasts of Essex, Suf- 
, Le 
folk, and Norfolk, has a maximum depth of only 180 feet. A change to that ~ 
amount of depression of sea-level would lay bare the whole of the sea-bed from 
the coast of Northumberland across to Jutland. A depression of only 120 feet 
would produce nearly a like result; the new coast-line would in this case run 
from Flamborough Head to Heligoland and Holstein. There would be an extension 
of the great Germanic plain nearly to our area. The “ Deep-water Channel” 
alluded to would in either case become the course of the Thames and its tribu- 
taries, till it found its way seawards to the west of the Great Banks. To such an 
extent would this small amount of change of water-level alter the whole physical 
character of Eastern Europe; and yet this change would be insignificant, compared 
with those which this very area has repeatedly experienced. There is one other 
feature presented by the North-Sea basin. A deep submarine trough has been 
traced, at a mean distance of about fifty miles from the coast-line of Norway ; 
it commences in the meridian of Christiania, and, conforming to the outline of 
the land, goes north beyond N. lat. 60°. South of the Naze of Norway, there are 
soundings of upwards of 200 fathoms; beyond they are less, but whether the 
decrease is progressive is not clear. -Across the line of greatest depth the change 
is abrupt. This curious feature in the outline of the sea-bed is just what would 
have been produced by the subsidence of the whole of the southern portion of 
the Scandinavian region, together with fifty miles of area around, to a depth of 
600 or 700 feet. There are good grounds for supposing that such has been the 
process ; and the geological history of the basin seems to supply the precise date of 
the subsidence in question, 
As a point in physical geography, it was the depression of the Scandinavian 
mass along the line indicated which produced the channels of the Skagerrach 
and the Cattegat, and opened a communication from the North Sea into the Baltic 
depression. 
reologically, some of the later stages or periods of the earth’s past history are 
so abundantly illustrated over the East-Anglian area, it is a field in which there 
haye been so many labourers, as to which, too, there yet remain so many unsolved 
points, that I cannot help hoping that this Section will follow to some extent the 
example set by their brethren the geologists of France, at their annual réunions 
extraordinaires, and make local geology a prominent subject of their deliberations 
at this Meeting. 
The points of interest alluded to belong to the great Kainozoic period ; indeed 
it isin this portion of England alone that the complete sequence of change, as it 
happened in this country, can be followed out; and as the term Kainozoic is what 
alone I propose to employ, I would explain that it is a Greek compound, signi- 
fying “recent living,” or indicative of that general period of which the fauna, in 
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