TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E, 635 
is now evidence of their effects across the entire width of the Mediterranean from 
north to south. Not far from Genoa stands, close to the water’s edge, the once 
celebrated monastery of S. Fruttuoso, said to have been founded in 409, when, in 
accordance with the theory outlined above, the present shore would have been 
higher above the sea than it now is. The building is supported on arches, through 
which were rowed, between 1275 and 1305, the mourning barges bringing here 
for burial the illustrious dead of the Dorias. At the present day the arches stand 
so high that the water does not even touch their piers, This is an indication that 
the coast of Northern Italy was relatively low during the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, that is, at a period precisely corresponding in time with the period of the 
greatest submergence of the Neapolitan shore. 
Again, it is held by competent authorities that during the classical period, 
and earlier, the Delta of the Nile was at a relatively much higher level above the 
sea than it is now—an idea fully borne out by Professor Petrie’s excavations in 
Lower Egypt. We have, therefore, good reason for believing that a large area of 
the Mediterranean basin was affected by the same movement. 
It is to be hoped that exact measurements of differences of land-levels will be 
made wherever possible. Many of the author’s measurements near Naples show 
variations amounting to as much as 11 feet in 2 miles, and are thus evidences of 
considerable tilting of strata since the medieval period. 
2. On the Nomenclature of the Physical Features of England and Wales. 
Ly Hue Rosert Min, D.Se. f 
Although innumerable place-names strew the large-scale maps of England and 
Wales, these refer chiefly to the smaller features, and when an orographical map 
is drawn on a small scale it is difficult to find appropriate names for the larger 
features of the vertical relief of the country. 
The names now suggested have been authorised by the Council of the Royal 
Geographical Society, on the basis of a scheme elaborated by a Committee of the 
Research Department of that Society, consisting of Mr. H. J. Mackinder, Mr. 
Chisholm, and the writer, and the map on which the work was done has been pre- 
pared by Mr. Bartholomew. 
Amongst the larger features recognised are the Eastern Plain, extending from 
the Vale of York into Essex ; the constituent members of the Oolitic Ridges, viz., 
the Cotteswold Hills, Edge Hill, the Northampton Uplands, the Lincoln Edge, and 
the North York Moors; the constituent features of the Chalk Ridge, viz., the 
Western Downs, Hampshire Downs, and the Weald on the south, and the White 
Horse Hills, Chiltern Hills, East Anglian Ridge, and Lincoln Wolds on the north. 
Special attention is bestowed on the naming of the gaps between the various 
groups of high land, and the whole constitutes a groundwork which it is hoped 
will be utilised in future maps. Where a large feature had no accepted name, one 
was provided by either of two processes—(a) somewhat widening the application of 
an existing name, as in the case of the Bowland and Rossendale Forests, the two 
almost detached pieces of high ground budding off from the Pennine Chain on the 
west, and (0) by introducing a new name so devised as to be in close harmony 
with existing names, such as the Western Downs, Forest Ridges, Lincoln Edge. 
3. Changes in the Fen District. By H. Yue Orpuam, 1.A. 
This paper dealt principally with changes in the river system of the Fen District 
since the seventeenth century, brought about by the cutting of the two great 
drainage channels across the Bedford Level and the building of the sluices across 
the old course of the Ouse at Denver. It was illustrated by representations of old 
maps of the district and by lantern-views, 
