452 Wliitakei — On Suhaerial Denudation. 



less as in the Norwegian fjords, where I have seen the old ice- 

 scratches run down to (and, perhaps, below) high-water-mark, 

 xuieffaced by the waves. It should be remarked too that in the 

 above cases the Chalk escarpment is mostly the larger of the two ; 

 whilst according to the marine theory it should clearly be the 

 smaller, because the inner and therefore the more sheltered. 



As far as I know the above arguments have never been thoroughly 

 answered, much less disproved, by those who hold that the sea has 

 been the great, if not the only, agent employed in forming escarp- 

 ments. Until this has been done the marine theory has little 

 foundation, and indeed is simply a convenient supposition, put 

 forward to avoid a seeming difficulty, not a theory upheld by sound 

 inferences and founded on well-established facts. 



To these may be added other remarks that have a general bearing 

 on the discussion, which, I believe, have not been treated of in such 

 detail as the foregoing, and which refer chiefly to the style of 

 argument that has been put forward against subaerialists. 



(7.) The preservation of old ice-scratchings has often been 

 brought forward as an argument for the powerlessness of surface- 

 actions in wearing away rocks; but really it is not a valid one, 

 for it is not enough that in some places the weather has not acted on 

 rocks for a very long time, it must be shown that such is the case 

 in raost places ; or, in other words, that the weather hardly ever 

 wears away rocks, not that it does not always do so. 



(8.) It has been objected that the subaerial theory needs a vast 

 time to account for the work done. This is an objection only, not 

 an argument, and few subaerialists can be afraid of allowing any 

 quantity of time for the work of those quiet ceaseless actions which 

 they look on as powerful enough to wear away the hardest rocks. A 

 late writer, one I believe who is known from his papers on subjects 

 relating to the connection of Geology and Archaeology, has well said, 

 in a Eeview of one of Mr. Prestwich's papers, " the main argument, 

 as to the process of excavation (of the valleys) and of the length of 

 time necessarily involved in it will, we are confident, eventually 

 meet with general acceptance, even if the rising school of geologists 

 . . . . may be induced to draw more largely than Mr. Prest- 

 wich on the enormous balance of past time which stands in their 

 favour in the Bank of Nature." ^ 



(9.) The occurrence of needles in places far from the sea has 

 been brought forward as an argument for marine denudation in 

 those places, and Sir C, Lyell, in the last edition of his "Elements 

 of Geology,"^ speaks of the needles of hard Chalk high up thei 

 valley of the Seine as " evidence of certain escarpments of the Chalk 



1 Geoi.. Mag., Vol. II., p. 26. (186-5.) 



2 1865. pp 351-5. As Sir Charles does not now hold thnt these needles are signs 

 of the action <if the sea (see before, p. 449), it might be thought needless here to 

 controvert that idea. However, as it is contained in the last edition of hid 

 " Elements," a work constantlj' referred to by geologists, I have let this paragraph 

 stand. 



