2716 Sir H. H. Howorth—North Norfolk Geology. 
was quite different to what it is now, and that a considerable part of 
it was occupied by beds, not of curved and broken chalk as now, but 
of horizontally bedded chalk lying at the level of the laminarian zone 
upon which the Crag shells lived and the Newer Crag beds were 
deposited, and that it was after this time that the whole of it was 
subjected to violent forces which dislocated and broke it and gave it 
its present contour. These conclusions seem inevitable. 
The next question that arises is what was the force or what were 
the forces which caused these dislocations and movements, and which 
occurred on this great scale not in remote geological time but, 
geologically speaking, only yesterday, at an epoch, in fact, when the 
possibility of such movements has been so continuously scouted by 
the champions of orthodox geology. 
There.are only two ways in which this widespread dislocation and 
destruction could take place. It must have been either by the 
application of force from the outside and from above, or by the 
exercise of subterranean energy. In regard to the former notion, 
which is the orthodox one, the difficulty is stupendous. We must not 
forget that the total thickness of the Chalk in this part of Norfolk 
must be very great, probably largely exceeding 500 feet, and further 
that chalk is a very tough material, offermg great resistance to 
pressure. How we are to secure an instrument acting from above 
which could twist and curve this material into meandering curves, 
arching it here and depressing it into synclinal folds elsewhere, and 
could further break otf with ragged edges and deeply wounded surfaces 
great angular masses and cakes of chalk, passes my comprehension. 
Yet the postulate has been gaily appealed to by most of the orthodox 
geologists without any attempt whatever being made to justify it. 
The Rev. O. Fisher, who generally argues in a strictly inductive 
way, writing as far back as 1868, attributed phenomena such as we 
are discussing to the pressure exercised by large masses of material 
on the underlying beds. Thus he says inter alia: ‘‘in attributing 
contortions in the underlying beds to the deposition of masses of 
matter upon the surface, I would go to the extent of suggesting that 
the remarkable bluffs of chalk at Trimingham may have been upraised 
by some such action.” Surely here we have a whole series of un- 
verified premises! Where can we find a single instance of such 
contortions and breakage as we are discussing as the result of placing 
great weights on the surface of the earth? Take the Pyramids, or 
buildings like St. Paul’s or St. Peter’s, among human experiments, or 
turning to purely natural phenomena, take the innumerable examples 
we can find of perfectly horizontal beds lying under tremendous loads 
of superincumbent material much greater than any that can be 
appealed to as overlying the Chalk in Norfolk. Surely the idea is a 
purely transcendental one. How, again, is the pressure of such a mass, 
even if effective for the purpose of producing dislocations, to cause 
meandering contours and alternate arches and hollows in chalk beds 
several hundred feet thick, or how is it to break off vast masses from 
their matrix with raw and angular edges? Assuredly, if the pressure 
is sufficiently great, crushing will ensue; that is true enough, but has 
anyone attempted to calculate the amount of mere pressure that would 
