Sir H. Hoivorth — Recent Changes of Level. 261 



the result of a more or less permanent change of level in the sea 

 margin, by which the land was upheaved, or do they merely mark 

 the highest level of a transient wave or rush of water, such as is 

 left by every high tide of the sea, and by every flooded river, or 

 rushing current escaping from a lake which has burst its barriers, 

 along the margin of its highest rush. 



The former view is that which chiefly prevails among the teachers 

 of Uniformity, who prefer to make whole continents rise and fall 

 to explain every similar phenomenon, so long as the process is a 

 slow one, than have recourse to any unusual displaceuient of water 

 on a large scale, which must follow any such upheaval or sub- 

 sidence on a much smaller scale when rapid. 1 must confess to 

 being a supporter of the latter view. 



In the first place I would call attention to the exceedingly sporadic 

 and scattered character of these raised beaches. They are nowhere 

 continuous for any distance ; they consist chiefly of mere shreds and 

 patches of gravel here and there, and not of continuous and deep 

 shingle beaches and masses of sand with marine shells in them, 

 such as the margins of the ocean would deposit. If there had been 

 a continuous and widely-spread elevation of the land we should 

 certainly have had in many places a replica of the modern strands. 

 Not only so, but these strands would have passed continuously round 

 all the inlets and recessed gulfs and bays of the land, where they 

 would have been virtually proof against subsequent denudation. 



Again, the sea would in this case have invaded all the lowlands 

 within its reach, and would in that case have covered them with 

 unmistakable marine deposits, mud and sand with marine debris. 

 Of evidence of this I can find none. This applies to the low-level 

 beaches. If we turn to the high-level ones the case is even more 

 remarkable. When we remember the height at which the Moel 

 Tryfaen and the Macclesfield beaches occur, it seems impossible to 

 understand, if they mark an actual prolonged submergence to that 

 extent, how it is that over large areas in England we do not find 

 most unmistakable evidence of prolonged submergence in the shape 

 of unmistakable marine deposits with the manifold wreckage of 

 the sea, for the submergence in question must have covered a large 

 part of these islands with a great depth of water, and according to 

 Uniformitarian views must have done so for a long period. 



I cannot, therefore, see in these beaches the proof of prolonged 

 submergence which others profess to see, but rather the passage 

 along the shore of a great tidal wave or rush of water, caused by 

 disturbance of the strata somewhere, which took up a certain quantity 

 of gravel, etc., and left it at its own high water-mark, at once a 

 proof of its presence, and a measure of its intensity at the spot of 

 the wave in question. 



The next, and a very important, point to remember, which has 

 been much overlooked, is the irregular height at which these raised 

 beaches occur. If they had been due to the general upheaval of the 

 land, we should have found assuredly some common level among 

 them ; instead of this it is scarcely possible to find any two of them 



