Profeasor Edivard Hull — Gravel Beds, Isle of Wight, etc. 105 



the width increases to nearly double the distance, and the current has 

 proportionately become slower, the sediment seems to have silted up 

 the channel so as to be, for some distance, indeterminable. 



Enough has probably now been advanced to show that land 

 conditions prevailed during a period included within the time-limits 

 of the great Post-Pliocene or Glacial Uplift. The conditions we 

 have been considering were only those of a stage in the still greater 

 uplift, and subsequent descent of the land ; and as the submerged river 

 valleys of Western Europe are traceable to a depth of 6,000 feet 

 below the present sea-level, where they open out on the Atlantic 

 floor, it is evident that the ocean-bed and the adjoining lands were 

 uplifted into those altitudes of ' excessive cold ' postulated by 

 Godwin-Austen, who with that prescience for which he was so 

 remarkable had almost advanced a prophetic solution of the hitherto 

 mysterious problem of the cause of the 'Great Ice Age', a solution 

 which for my part I am prepared to maintain as one sufficient in 

 itself, and in harmony with the physical conditions revealed by the 

 deep-sea soundings.^ 



Part Y : Concltjsiok. 



I have endeavoured to add a chapter to what has been so ably 

 written by previous authors on the geological history of this 

 interesting island and its neighbouring lands, based on individual 

 strata of gravel, apparently of little interest in comparison with the 

 fine assemblage of Tertiary beds on which they repose, but, as I have 

 endeavoured to show, having a not unimportant place in the geological 

 and prehistoric record. 



It now only remains to recapitulate the physical changes which in 

 this district at least took place at the close of the Tertiary period 

 down to the present time. We begin with uprise of the Tertiaiy 

 and Cretaceous beds. 



1. Earliest stage. Axis of the Isle of Wight. Stratigraphical 

 upthrust of the Cretaceo-Tertiary beds by lateral pressure ; formation 

 of an E.-W. axis, followed by denudation of the strata and long lapse 

 of time. 



2. Eegional uplift and formation of the Continental Platform, 

 uniting Europe and the British Isles — English Channel Iliver Valley. 



3. Submergence to extent of 400 feet and over in South of England, 

 increasing northwards and reaching from 1,200 to 1,300 feet in Wales 

 and Ireland. Beds of gravel and sand in. Surrey, Norfolk, the 

 Midlands, Lancashire, and Wales. 



4. Ee-elevation into present condition of land and sea ; formation of 

 low terraces, with works of art and extinct animals. The latest 

 elevation of low-level gravels being probably within the period of the 

 Eoman occupation. 



^ The author has in preparation a monograph on the ' ' Sub-oceanic 

 Physiography" of the Atlantic Ocean, showing by charts the position of the 

 submerged terraces and river-channels which descend to depths of 6,000 or 

 7,000 feet, and are continuous with the existing rivers of Europe. 



