322 A. R. Hunt — Geological Physics of the Shallow Seas. 



eminent mathematicians, who kindly guarded me against any 

 conflict between observation and theory. 



It is doubtful, and indeed improbable, that anyone has carefully 

 read all those papers, as geologists might be deterred by the 

 technical zoology, the zoologists by the technical geology, and 

 physicists by both. The fact was that the complex subject required 

 the attention of first-rate specialists, and it was utterly beyond my 

 powers to do justice to it, or even to sufficiently impress scientific 

 men with its real interest and importance. 



So far as I w^as personally concerned my efforts were fully 

 acknowledged : by election in 1879 to the General Committee of 

 the British Association, and in 1884 to the Linnean Society. But, 

 notwithstanding this, the subject has been rather persistently 

 ignored, and a month scai'cely passes without some crusted old 

 fallacy being repeated in print. It is, however, absolutely useless 

 to contradict the errors in detail. 



As the question of raised beaches is essentially one of marine 

 geological physics, I am, for the reasons given above, much 

 interested in the problems suggested by the new evidence, entii'ely 

 apart from any personal opinions. 



A raised beach is obviously an ancient water margin ; and, 

 according to the character of its deposits, so must have been its 

 related submarine slope seawards. As a rule the ancient slope, or 

 sea-bottom, has been subsequently raised and eroded to a much, 

 lower level, and wei'e the land again lowered to its ancient beach- 

 level, the conditions would be quite different, and the waves would 

 merely remove every vestige of beach-deposit from the old remnant 

 of a beach or foreshoi'e platform. But in Ireland, we now learn, 

 thanks to the researches of Messrs. Wright & Muff, that the present 

 recent shingle occasionally rests on an ancient ice-scored beach 

 platform or its equivalent, a state of things one might well have 

 deemed impossible. However, the fact must be faced. As a raised 

 beach is, after all, a beach, to understand it thoroughly the student 

 must be intimate with modern beaches. In fact, a raised beach 

 student should be geologist, conchologist, and marine engineer. 

 Whether that combination at present exists I am not aware, 

 but its advantage was exemplified in the case of the late 

 Daniel Pidgeon, who from his knowledge of beaches and 

 conchology, and being also an engineer, though not a marine 

 engineer, at once discerned the unbeachlike character of a portion 

 of the Hope's Nose beach-deposits. At present beaches are being 

 keenly studied by marine engineers, with a view to sea defence 

 works. Most of the details of the forms and depths of drowned and 

 silted valleys are in the offices of railway engineers, in connection 

 with their bridges and viaducts. The present depths of estuaries 

 and submerged plateaux ai-e in the large-scale marine charts, while 

 the raised beaches are known only to geologists, who, however, 

 often pay too little attention to the shell fragments in the beach 

 deposits. Even my friend Mr. Ussher, who knows well-nigh every 

 rock exposure in South Devon, tells us of a consolidated bed of 



