400 Wood — On the East Essex Gravels. 



cliannels converged) shows the dividing ridge, the summit of which 

 is occupied by Eatley Hill Wood, equally well defined. This section 

 has been extended so as to cross both the arms into which the 

 Thames gravel channel is here divided b}^ a small island, formed by 

 what is now Telegraph Hill, near Swanscomb, on the summit of 

 which also occurs a patch of the denudation gravel a; 2. In conse- 

 quence of the great extent of the break-up and denudation that fol- 

 lowed, the Upper Brickearth having so altered this section from its 

 condition during the Thames gravel period, a restoration of it to this 

 condition has been attempted beneath the section. The section is 

 carried to Hoo Common to show the position that the starting 

 point from which the Weald terraces down in Section 14, occupies 

 relatively to the Thames gravel channel. 



I submit that unless Sections 13, 14, 15, and 16 can be shown to 

 be inaccurate, the conclusion cannot be escaped that the East Essex 

 and the Thames gravels were the deposits of independent channels 

 opening into a common sea at a point of inosculation near Eochester. 

 This sea occupied all, except the extreme north-west corner, of the 

 county of Kent. The sections illustrating this former geogTaphical 

 feature might be multiplied, but those given seem sufficient for the 

 purpose without enlarging further upon this part of the subject. 



If my readers will now look at the Map, and at the grouping of 

 the gravels (x6) that occur on the Lower Greensand terrace, which 

 opens out beneath the escarpment of Chalk near Snodland, and that 

 near Otford,^ they will see that in both cases these gravels lie at the 

 moiith of the trumpet-shaped openings, through which the rivers 

 Darent and Medway now flow from the Weald ; and that these 

 openings expand towards the Weald as the mouths of rivers would 

 do if a sea were there, hut in the opposite direction to that in which 

 these rivers noio floio. More than this, however, they will see that 

 the gravels of the Lower Greensand terrace expand with these mouths, 

 and that the area of the strip of Lower Greensand which underlies 

 the Chalk escarpment, is broadest opposite these trumpet-shaped 

 openings, and regularly narrows off as it recedes from them. Does 

 not this, I would ask, point distinctly to a copious watershed, 

 coupled with a tidal entry and reflux, having taken place at this 

 part contemporaneously with the elevation of the country, by which 

 the Chalk has been in this part more extensively denuded, and the 

 Chalk escarpments pushed proportionately further back ? In these 

 two trumpet-shaped openings we have respectively the mouths of 

 rivers into one of which, that opening by Snodland, the broad 

 channel of the East Essex gravel had shrunk ; and into the other of 

 which, that opening by Otford, the drainage collecting in the dessi- 

 cated Thames Gravel Valley made its way to the sea. The succes- 

 sion of the gravels does not, however, end with xQ, for it may be 

 seen that the (impure) gravels of the Weald clay bottom (icT) open 



1 This is tlie portion of Map tliat has been reduced from the Geological Survey 

 Sheet. Whatever hesitation may be felt in admitting the accuracy of the part (that 

 uortb of the parallel of Eochester) which has been reduced from my own survey, 

 none, I presume, will be entertained as to this portion. 



