104 Professor Echrard Hull — Gravel Beds, Isle of Wight, etc. 



ventured to name " tlie English Channel River ". It will be necessary 

 for me to return to this subject later on. (See Map, Plate YI.) 



The margin of the Continental Platform was traced by the late 

 Mr. Hudleston/ and described before the British Association at Bristol, 

 but without the intersecting channels ; and also by Dr. Nansen, 

 Professor Spencer, and myself,* and is now recognized as a former 

 coastline at a time when the sea-bed was about 100 fathoms above 

 its present level. On the platform thus circumscribed the whole of 

 the British Isles and "Western Europe are planted. It is needless to 

 say that the physical features there determined have been based on 

 the isobathic contours which may be traced by means of the soundings 

 recorded on the Admiralty Charts.' 



Littoral Shells of the Channel Bed. — The statements of Godwin- Austen 

 regarding the shells dredged from the bed of the Channel at depths 

 of 60 or 70 fathoms (360-420 feet) is confirmation of the view that 

 the Channel was contiguous with dry land at a former pei'iod. He 

 says: "The great proportion of these shellj^ materials (forming the 

 floor of the Channel) has come from a contiguous higher zone ; but 

 mixed with these, and in considerable abundance, are the pounded 

 fragments of the commonest littoral species. Thus the Haliotis 

 tuherculata, which lives about Brittany and the Channel coast just 

 below ordinary low water, has its fragments carried out 50 miles 

 from the nearest coast, and with it abundantly Patella vtdgata^\ and 

 at the Little Sole Bank in a depth of water of 60 or 70 fathoms 

 Turbo littoreus is found near the edge of the Continental Platform, 

 where the water descends to great depths ; and the conclusion whicli 

 he draws is that the whole of the Channel valley had at some former 

 period a higher level than at present.* 



Again, in the paper read before the Society by the same author 

 " On the Pleistocene Period", he states that in order to account for 

 certain phenomena of this region it is necessary to infer an elevation 

 of great amount, such as would place the whole of the higher portions 

 of this country in regions of excessive cold.^ 



The English Channel River. — I now come to state the evidence for 

 the existence of the submerged river valley to which I have already 

 alluded, the presence of which on the Admiralty Chart is conclusive 

 of former land conditions over this region. So clear is this submerged 

 channel, that the officers engaged on the soundings have traced its 

 course for a distance of 60 miles and named it " The Hurd Deep", 

 after its discoverer. Its total length is about 300 miles from its 

 source near the Straits of Dover to its outlet at the margin of the 

 Continental Platform, where it has worn a deep channel into the 

 ocean. Its channel appears to have been swept free of sediment 

 where the English Channel is narrow between Cape de la Hague and 

 Portland Bill, and the tidal current is exceedingly strong ; but when 



^ British Association Eeport, Bristol. - Ibid. 



^ The margin of the platform nearly coincides with the meridian 9° 5', W., 

 and its position at the edge of the steep descent has been recorded by 

 Godwin-Austen from soundings by himself (1850). " Valley of the English 

 Channel " : Q.J.G.S., vol. vi, p. 76. 



* Ibid., p. 85. '" Ibid., vol. vii, p. 130. 



