Sir H. H. Hoicorth — Destruction of the Chalk. 61 



and left it intact in the wolds, where it would be so much more 

 exposed to its influence. The position is not arguable. 



These various facts and arguments seem to me to converge upon 

 one conclusion, namely, that the denudation of the Chalk and other 

 beds in Eastern England was not and could not be the result of 

 diurnal causes. Let us now try and examine the notion that the 

 ruin of the Chalk was the result of the breakage and disintegration 

 of the strata which occurred when the present contour was given to 

 the country. 



First, let us turn from the chalky rubble to the well-known 

 gigantic masses of chalk and oolite which occur occasionally in the 

 Eastern Counties, and to which I have referred. These have always 

 been a crux to the advocates of diurnal methods of denudation. 

 Rivers or sea-waves can hardly move about twenty square miles of 

 Chalk en bloc over leagues and leagues of country, and those who 

 believe that land-ice or glaciers could do this, must have some special 

 acquaintance with the inner workings of ice which has not been 

 given to those who have seen it at work in its own special home. 

 To me, who am only a heretic, these great masses now found detached 

 and isolated are not far-transported boulders at all, but are virtually 

 in situ, the remains and relics of the once continuous strata which 

 occupied the areas now largely denuded. If they have been moved, 

 it has been a very short distance and by some tremendous motive 

 force which may have temporarily lifted them and underlaid their 

 edges with chalky clay, but otherwise they are at home where they 

 were originally made and deposited, and are no vagabonds and 

 wanderers. This conclusion I have long held, and it seems to me 

 more consonant with probability than any other. As the matter is of 

 more than usual importance I should like to enlarge a little upon it. 



Writing in description of the Geological Survey Map, Sheet 64 

 (Rutland, etc.), Mr. Judd says: "The transported masses of 

 local rocks are sometimes of enormous size, especially in the 

 northern portion of this area and in that to the south. The 

 attention of geologists was first directed to these great trans- 

 ported masses by Professor Morris, who found that at the south 

 end of the Stoke tunnel on the Great Northern Railway an enormous 

 mass of the Lincolnshire Oolite limestone lay on undoubted Boulder- 

 clay. During the mapping by Messrs. Holloway, Skertchly, and 

 myself, of the districts which I have indicated, we have found 

 a number of such transported masses, some of them far exceeding in 

 size that described by Professor Morris, and composed both of the 

 Inferior Oolite and the Marlstone rock-bed. Their position is 

 indicated upon the Drift map. They always appear to occur in the 

 lower part of the Boulder-clay, and by the denudation of the softer 

 surrounding material often make a distinct boss, rising above the 

 general surface. Stone pits are often opened in them, and they 

 sometimes give off springs at their base. The longest of these 

 transported masses, that capping Beacon-hill in Sheet 70, is more 

 than 200 yards across, and is composed of the Marlstone rock-bed. 

 It is noteworthy that these masses always belong to the rocks which 

 form the highest ground." (Geology of Rutland, etc., p. 216.) 



