382 Correspojidence. 



deviations from longitiidinal horizontality/ where it may have been 

 caused by locally-unequal elevation or depression, and where it could 

 have served no economical purpose ; the varying breadth of many of 

 the terraces, and the occasional merging of a lower into a higher 

 cliff, as might be expected, supposing them to be successively worn- 

 back coast-lines ; the way in which they narrow off or vanish, and 

 re-appear ; the positions they occupy, which are often the least 

 eligible for cultivation, if not beyond its reach ; the historical or 

 archaeological evidences of their extreme antiqvTity which, I believe, 

 can be adduced ; and, above all, their great number and extent. 



So far as my observations have extended, the plough would appear 

 to obliterate rather than form regular sj^stems of terraces such as 

 those above described. Mr. G. Poulett Scrope believes that the 

 agricultural theory of their origin is the one generally received. 

 But it is well known in the south of England that antiquarians have 

 claimed these terraces, and that those of them which encircle hills 

 have been regarded as the remains of Phoenician hill-cities. If they 

 originated, as Mr. Scroj)e supposes, in the cultivation of longitudinal 

 strips of land by separate owners or tenants, the upper cultivator 

 " careful not to allow the soil of his strip to descend to fertilize his 

 neighbour's below," the arrangement must have been worthy of a very 

 short-sighted race of farmers ; for most of the terraces are so narrow 

 that the part really available for ctdtivation could not have been 

 more than two or three yards in breadth, or so loide and Mgli that 

 the amount of labour necessary to farm them must have been too 

 great for a profitable return ; and one can scarcely help supposing 

 that the cultivators might have invented a more economical and less 

 troublesome boundary than the accumulation of a bank of soil, im- 

 poverishing the inner part of a " strip," and requiring the constant 

 watch of its jealous owner. There are other points in the agri- 

 cultural theory Avhich not only suppose a cause disproportionate to 

 the effect, but involve a series of improbabilities one would not 

 expect to find in an exjilanation set forth as the opposite of a " pre- 

 posterous idea." 



I regret that I have to write from memory, and that I may not 

 have an opportunity of corroborating the above statements by re- 

 visiting the localities for several months to come. Meanwhile 

 several competent gentlemen are kindly making observations, the 

 results of which will soon be published. 



In conclusion I would venture to call the attention of geologists 

 to the necessity for subjecting the theory of the non-submergence of 

 the South of England during any part of the glacial period, to the 

 test of facts, by following up the observations lately made by Mr. 

 Maw, in Devonshire. 



D. Mackintosh. 



1 I should not go so far as to assert that each of the smaller terraces (which are 

 frequently not parallel) indicated a pause in the rise or fall of the land, as we know 

 that the sea often leaves terraces, regular and irregular, between the extreme highest 

 and lowest tide-levels. 



