538 G. Poulett Scrope — On Pretended Raised Beaches. 



very gentle that there could have been no inducement to break it 

 up into terraces as a means of facilitating cultivation." 



Fig. 2. — Terraces neae Stockbridge. 



It was to meet such cases as these of gentle slopes so terraced 

 that, in my paper above-mentioned (Vol. III., p. 293), I suggested 

 the probability that each of such terraces might have been in early 

 times strips of land held by separate occupiers (as was up to a very 

 late period the custom in many " common fields," and is at present 

 through a large part of France), the "bank" having been originally 

 perhaps only a grassy border, or a slight fence, either of which would 

 be enough to arrest the descent of silt during rains from the surface 

 of the ploughed strip above, and by its long-continued accumulation 

 upon this edge raise there by degrees a steep bank, while the slope 

 above would, by the same process, rise into a nearly level terrace. As a 

 practical proof of the correctness of this theory, I stated that these 

 banks might be observed by any long resident in the country to 

 grow in height, and gave a cut representing one that I had myself 

 seen ivJiolly created within a few years by this process. I will now 

 add another to exemplify the fact that it is by no means necessary 

 that a fence should exist along the lower edge in order to stop, by 

 its resistance, the descent of silt, gravel, etc., from the slojie above. 

 I could adduce numberless instances in which, when there did exist 

 such a fence, the silt has been deposited in a bank stopping short, 

 and leaving an interval like a ditch, of a yard or two wide, between 

 itself and the fence below. It happens in this wise (see Fig. 3), 



Fig. 3. — Terrace and Bank caused by Descent op Silt, etc. 



A, B represents the profile of a hill slope, towards the base of which 

 a fence, — say a stone wall, c, d separates the arable field b, e from 

 the one below a, d ; the dotted line d, f, represents the original surface. 

 But by the continued ploughing of that surface in horizontal furrows, 

 aided by the wash of the disintegrated soil during rains, much of it 

 has been carried down to form the bank and terrace, d, e, f, at the 

 bottom of the field. The descending silt, however, does not actually 



