G. Poulett Scrope — On Pretended Raised Beaches. 537 



it would follow as a matter of course that the softer surfaces of the 

 slope, above and below it, will have been preferably subjected to 

 aration, and in time the ordinary result would appear in the accumu- 

 lation of a considerable depth of silt and gravel — the washing of 

 the plough-disturbed surfoce above — on the brow of the harder 

 stratum, while its base would be eaten away through the action of 

 the plough, and the loss by descent to a lower level of the matter 

 so disturbed ; thus by degrees a small cliff or bank (balk) would be 

 formed, chiefly consisting of hard rock, between the upper and under 

 arable terraces. And this surely must be called an "artificial 

 terrace," though the occurrence of a hard stratum of " natural " 

 rock directed the operations of the plough. Indeed, it is obvious 

 that in all cases of the alternation of harder and softer groups of 

 horizontal strata in a hill-side, the agriculturist would follow the 

 direction of the softer portions in ploughing the slope, leaving the 

 harder as banks to support his arable terraces, just as the vine- 

 growers of the sunny slopes of France, G-ermany, and Italy, avail 

 themselves of the outcrop of harder strata to assist the formation of 

 the walls which support the "artificial" terraces, built up by them to 

 check the descent of soil from above. 



Mr. Mackintosh tells us in his preface that he has never been 

 out of this island. It is therefore probable he is not aware of the 

 extent to which the cultivation of hill-slopes by the system of arti- 

 ficial terraces is practised throughout the continent, nor of the 

 general character of such terraced slopes. Otherwise, I think, he 

 would hardly have presented his readers with the example of 

 " Terraces of Marine Erosion," of which the accompanying woodcut 

 is a copy (p. 88). 



FiQ. 1.— Profile op Terraces on the Side of a Chalk Hill near Twyford. 



On this he remarks — "Unless we can conceive of our ancestors 

 having been endowed with so great a taste for the picturesque as to 

 dig out chalk for burning in a series of ornamental steps or shelves, 

 I can see no agency likely to have formed these terraces excepting 

 oceanic currents, at different levels, with or without floating ice " (!). 

 As a " pendant " to this example of a steep-terraced hill, I copy one 

 other of Mr. Mackintosh's cuts representing "the most regular series 

 of terraces I have yet seen in the Chalk district, which occurs on the 

 side of a hill to the south-west of Stockbridge, the slope being so 



