G. Poulett Scrope — On Pretended Baised Beaches. 539 



reach the wall,, for the reason that the plough never can be driven 

 within a few feet of it ; a small strip of unploughed and con- 

 sequently grassy surface will always intervene between the last 

 furi'ow and the fence, and however slight this obstruction, it is 

 sufficient to check the descent of silt, and cause it to accumulate in 

 the lowest furrow. By repetition of this process througli a series 

 of years, the bank is formed, maintaining a certain distance from 

 the wall, as seen in the woodcut. And thus, it will be perceived, 

 that the bank and terrace above, would be produced equally, whether 

 a fence existed below it, or only that the lowest limit of aration was 

 originally marked by a grassy ridge, a few inches in height. 



All this minute explanation of the humble origin of these banks, 

 is, however, mere moonshine to Mr. Mackintosh, who prefers to 

 bring the ocean up to and above the tops of our Chalk and Oolite 

 hills, to account for the petty features with which their sides are 

 scored. It is true that in his recent volume (p. 88) he seems, 

 though in an equivocal manner, to admit that some of the banks, 

 terraces, etc., may have been formed artificially ; while in his earlier 

 paper he denied this origin to any. He now only ventures to say, 

 " It is, I think, by (marine) currents acting on an easily moulded 

 material, that many of the terraces of the chalk downs can be most 

 satisfactorily explained." This, of course, makes the intervention of 

 the ocean, and consequently the recent elevation of the surface of 

 the island from beneath it, just as indispensable as if all the terraces 

 were ascribed to its erosive action. So that nothing is gained by 

 the evasive admission. Only a perplexing doubt is introduced as 

 to which of the " thousands of terraces " to be seen at different 

 levels on the hill-sides of Wiltshire, Dorset, Hants., and other of our 

 counties, are to be ascribed to the work of Giles Ploughman, and 

 which to mighty Neptune. They were all " raised sea-beaches " in 

 Mr. Mackintosh's paper of July, 1866, now some are, and some are 

 not ! I venture again to maintain that all are of artificial origin ; 

 and that consequently no proof is to be derived from them, either of 

 the very recent sojourn of the sea tipou the summits of our hills, or 

 of the " very limited amount of atmospheric denudation in the Chalk 

 and Oolite districts," which was another most important inference 

 drawn from these terraces by Mr. M. (Vol. III., p. 69). They, in 

 truth, lead to the very opposite conclusion, showing indisputably 

 how largely atmospheric influences have altered the form of the siu-- 

 faces exposed to them, within periods of a very few years' dm-ation. 



It is hardly worth while to notice some futile objections urged by 

 Mr. Mackintosh to the agricultural orgin of the terraces, such as that 

 the strips of arable could not have been held " in severaltj^" because 

 such divisions are not mentioned in title-deeds, etc. ; whereas it is 

 notorious that nearly all old terriers of estates contain mention of 

 single acres, half-acres, or other small quantities of land, so held in 

 the common arable fields of the manor. But, of course, in sug- 

 gesting the possibility of the terraces having in some cases origi- 

 nated in their ha^dng been held in early times by difi"erent culti- 

 vators, I by no means intended to suppose this to have been the 



