Correspondence, 573. 



such cannot be escarpments running along the strike in the same set 

 of beds (according to Mr. Topley they cannot be escarpments at all), 

 and if not due to the sea they cannot be the effect of atmospheric 

 action — which "always follows the strike." Escarpments consisting 

 of different beds at the lower from those at the upper end, can easily 

 be explained by supposing the sea to have acted at diiferent levels. 

 A longitudinally-sloping cliff, of the same kind of rock throughout, 

 might have been left by the sea during a gradual rise of the land, 

 or it may have been unequally elevated after its formation. Sub- 

 aerialists are not consistent in calling the latter supposition "ground- 

 less and unwarrantable," seeing that their theory (as explained by 

 Messrs. Foster and Topley) involves a successive tilting up of the 

 inner end of a valley to give " excavating power " to its stream. 



Belation between Escarpments and Plains. — In the case of many 

 Tertiary, Chalk, and Oolitic escarpments in Hampshire (especially 

 in the vicinity of Southampton, where the parental relation between 

 escarpments now formed by the sea, and inland escarpments on the 

 same horizon, or at different parallel levels, is indisputable), Wilt- 

 shire, and Somersetshire, the top and base are continuous parallel 

 planes. The level areas above and below will be admitted to be the 

 work of the sea, and unless we can conceive of a coastless ocean, it 

 is difficult to resist the belief that the face of the escarpment is 

 likewise of marine origin. That the areas at the base of escarpments 

 should be slightly mclined affords no presumption against the marine 

 theory, as this is often the case with table-land " planes of marine 

 denudation." 



Weathered Escarpments. — Mr. Whitaker speaks of " a sea-cliff, 

 weathered down into a slope with a talus," as distinct from an escarp- 

 ment; but if the talus be a proof of the marine origin of a cliff, 

 the escarpments of the Oolite, Lias, and all the older rocks must 

 have been sea-cliffs. A striking instance is furnished by the 

 Cotswold escarpment, especially near Cheltenham and Gloucester, 

 where a rocky cliff is for great distances concealed under a sloping 

 talus, and where the atmosphere is still destroying a smoothly- 

 grooved (especially near Crickley) and pitted sea-wall, which, at 

 intervals, has resisted its action. The rocky limestone and mill- 

 stone-grit escarpments of Derbyshire, Yorkshire and other counties, 

 have their bases buried in accumulations of blocks, fragments, and 

 rubbish (where they have not at inter-vals been swept clean, leaving 

 a grassy platform or slope), which rains do very little to remove. 

 The size of the fragments we see at the base of these cliffs (many 

 of which are in situations where they could never have fallen) must 

 be regarded as representing the size of the fragments which have 

 been carried away, and indicating the power (nothing short of 

 stormy waves) by which the transportation was effected. The so- 

 called rain-M^ash, in many cases, must have come from a distance 

 and has not been furnished by a pluvial disintegration of the frag- 

 ments on the spot, as is evident from its composition. 



Assumed Distinctions between Escarpments and Sea-cliffs. Mr. 



Whitaker institutes a series of distinctions between escarpments and 



