306 Sir H. H. Howorth— Dislocation of the Chalk. 



In 1889, Berendt published a paper in which he reverted to 

 Johnstrup's explanation, and argued at considerable length in bis 

 favour. This, again, was answered, with great force and in great 

 detail, in a memorable and, as it seems to me, conclusive memoir by 

 E. Credner, in which he made the position so long ago sustained 

 by Lyell unassailable. The fact is the more remarkable since 

 B. Credner is himself a champion of extreme glacial views. He 

 tells us, that the view held by von Koenen was strongly supported 

 by the geologists who went on an excursion after the Geological 

 Congress at Greisswald in 1889. They noted also that the disloca- 

 tions in the cliffs north and south of the Kiel Brook, formed a row 

 of parallel ruptures extending from SSE. to NNW., and were 

 accompanied by a series of step-like sinkings of the intervening 

 strata. E. Credner adds, that during his own numerous excursions, 

 and especially in 1890 and 1892, when he spent several weeks on the 

 island of Moen, he was satisfied of the justice of von Koenen's con- 

 clusions, that the disruptions were due to the forces which gave 

 the island its contour, and not to ice-action at all. The paper 

 is too long to condense here, and those who still need convincing 

 had better turn to its elaborate descriptions, arguments, and especially 

 to the sections, to see how utterly inadequate ice, in any form we know 

 it, would be to bend these great masses of chalk into reversed folds, 

 into arches and synclinal hollows, and to do so frequently when 

 the chalk was coated, and had its surface therefore padded, with 

 layers of soft materials — sand, clay, etc. Credner's paper has not 

 been answered, or criticized even ; and it seems to me not only 

 conclusive in itself, but to be a very eloquent complement to the 

 evidence of the disturbed chalk of Britain presenting the same 

 features and preaching the same lesson. 



Let us now revert somewhat. As we have seen, the Geological 

 Surveyors in East Anglia and the German geologists in Denmark 

 attribute the flexures and dislocations of the chalk to the same period, 

 namely, that in which the boulder-clay was distributed. This is 

 confirmed when we turn to the submerged downs of the North Sea, 

 over all of which, over the Dogger Bank, the Goodwin Sands, the 

 Haslow Oyster Bank, the Knole Sand, etc., numerous remains of 

 mammoths and their contemporaries have occurred. This, it seems 

 to me, can only be explained by the submergence of the North Sea 

 being subsequent to the formation of the land-surface on which the 

 mammoths lived. If, as some have held, these remains found under 

 the North Sea were carried down by the Ehine (another of the 

 postulates of Uniformity which outrage common-sense), it is extra- 

 ordinary that they should occur so unweathered and unrubbed, not 

 in the hollows where the river may have flowed — if it then existed, 

 which is very doubtful — but along the ridges. The widely-spread 

 area of the North Sea where the unrolled remains occur, and the 

 fact that they are so often found on the submerged ridges and 

 downs, make it plain that we have to do here with a wide area 

 which has been recently submerged. 



The fact of these bones and teeth being so fresh and unweathered, 



