8. S. Buckman — River Development. 369 



postulates, an auticline so important as to have divided the rivers 

 of England and to have deflected the Severn, there should be no 

 more evidence than " traces." If there were such an anticline as 

 Mr. Strahan supposes there must be more than traces. This Chalk 

 anticline could not have been formed without the upheaval of the 

 underlying Jurassic rocks. Therefore, north-west of the water- 

 parting, that is, north-west of the Cotteswold escarpment according 

 to the theory, the Jurassic rocks should dip differently from what they 

 do to the south-east thereof. A very little upheaval should have put 

 them level ; a little more, enough to make an anticline sufficiently 

 important for Mr. Strahan's purpose, should have given the Jurassic 

 rocks a decided tilt to the north-west. But the facts are all the 

 other way : the Jurassic rocks of the Severn- Avon valley dip per- 

 sistently to the south-east; they dip just as the Oolitic rocks of the 

 Cotteswolds do. To postulate an anticline in the face of these facts 

 ought to require a robust imagination ; and it hardly seems desirable 

 for anyone possessed thereof to label other theories which do at any 

 rate fit such facts as these. 



Suppose, however, that spite of the dip we grant the required 

 anticline. What happens ? Mr. Strahan says, " On the west side 

 [of the anticline] the rivers are deflected to a south-westerly course 

 as in the case of the Avon and Severn, or to a north-easterly course 

 as in the case of the Ouse and Nen" (p. 220). Why the Ouse 

 and Nen, when they rise behind, that is to the east, of where the 

 supposed anticline would have run ? It sounds rather haphazard, 

 this parting of the waters. But of course Mr. Strahan has carefully 

 considered what this statement involves before making it. When 

 the rivers come into the syncline, which must of necessity lie to the 

 west of the anticline, they still obey the law of gravity as to their 

 further course. Some flow north-east, some south-west ; therefore 

 the syncline must have dipped in these two directions from a central 

 axis in order to produce this phenomenon. Here, then, is another 

 anticline to be accepted, one that must have been approximately at 

 right angles to the other, a Charnian anticline this time. Mr. Strahan 

 does not say anything about, nor offer any evidence for, its existence ; 

 yet logically such an anticline is an absolute necessity to justify his 

 statement. 



Suppose we accept both these anticlines and see what the position 

 would be. We have a Caledonian anticline with a syncline to the 

 north-west of it ; this syncline dipping south-west and north-east 

 from a Charnian anticline. The Caledonian anticline must have 

 been similarly affected. Let us consider the Severn-Avon part. 

 We have on the south-east of these rivers an anticline running 

 approximately from north-east to south-west, and its axis dipping- 

 south-west, according to the necessities of Mr. Strahan's hypothesis. 

 What happens ? Observations on any good road which runs down- 

 hill will tell us. The crown of the road is the anticlinal axis, 

 dipping downhill ; the gutter between the road and the path is 

 tlie syncline, dipping similarly. From the crown of the road and 

 from the path the water cuts channels to the gutter, not at right 



DECADE IV. — VOL. IX. — NO. VIII. 24 



