Sir H. Soworth — Recent Changes of Letel. 259 



Pharos, and at tlie eastern extremity of the Port of Ermoste the 

 Sea Bath cut in the solid rock upon the shore. Both these rocks 

 are to all appearances the same at this day as they were in ancient 

 times." Similarly Murchison showed that on the Danube the 

 remains of Roman buildings prove that no change of level has taken 

 place since Roman times. 



These remarkable facts are proofs, no doubt, of uniformity of 

 continuous conditions having subsisted during the last eighteen 

 centuries ; but they are at the same time equally clear proofs that 

 there was a time, or rather there have been many times, when the 

 crust of the earth in these latitudes had more " ups and downs " 

 than it has had recently. 



Let us now proceed a step further. If we traverse the limits of 

 recorded history and try to discover what archeeological or geological 

 evidence we can reach of the latest changes in the distribution of 

 land and water within our four seas, we are remitted to two kinds 

 of evidence, that of the submerged forests on the one hand, and 

 that of the raised beaches and their associated phenomena on the 

 other. With the submerged forests I do not at present propose to 

 deal, but will limit myself to the raised beaches. What then is the 

 meaning of the raised beaches ? 



Before we attack the main point, I wish to say something of a 

 subordinate issue, upon which I think a great deal of baseless 

 inference has been built. There are two places in Britain where 

 primitive boulders occur, in which it is possible that they are quite 

 accidental. One is on the coast of Sussex, and the other is the case 

 of the so-called Norwegian boulders in Eastern England. Upon both, 

 of these occurrences, as we have said, very large conclusions have 

 been based ; and they would, in a measure, be justified, if these 

 boulders were erratics, but on this point there is the gravest doubt. 

 First, in regard to those found in the English Channel (and I am 

 speaking of the foreign stones only) whose provenance has been 

 much debated and in regard to which extraordinary postulates 

 as to shore-ice and floating-ice in the English Channel have been 

 forthcoming, in spite of the fact that the shells and other dehris 

 found there show no traces of great cold, but on the contrary are 

 mixed with Lusitanian and southern forms. It seems to me that 

 not only the very local distribution of these boulders, but the place 

 where they occur, in a reach of embayed waters, are strongly against 

 their having been regular erratics. If they had been so, assuredly 

 we should have found others in the Isle of Wight and on the 

 coast of the mainland east and west of it, besides the mere cluster 

 to which I refer, and which has been so much discussed. How, 

 then, would I account for these bouldei's ? By the simple theory 

 that they may be ballast which has either been thrown overboard or 

 has come from some ship which has gone to pieces on the coast. 

 Assuredly this is a very reasonable explanation of the facts and 

 much more in accordance with scientific laws of evidence than the 

 current theory, and it ought to be discussed and its possibility tested 

 before we are called upon to face much more difficult causes. 



