D. Macldntosh — Terraces on Inland Slopes. 25 



for it cannot be said that the isolation of the Orfordness bank, Hurst 

 bank, and many otliors tliat mif^lit bo named, is duo to the cause ad- 

 vocated by the authors of the paper. 



VII. — Terraces on Inland Slopes. — Eeply to G. Poulett 

 ScROPE, Esq. 



By D. Mackintosh, F.G.S. 



IN the article on Terraces in your last number, Mr. G. Poulett 

 Scrope evidently did not intend writing in a style that would 

 bear being minutely criticized, or he v/as not sufficiently particular 

 in quoting from my work and representing my present views. As it 

 stands, a reader of Mr. Scrope's article would receive impressions 

 very different from those which a perusal of my chapter on Raised 

 Beaches and Inland Terraces would leave on his mind. Such being 

 the case, I am sure Mr. Scrope will pardon me if I make a few 

 remarks in self- vindication. 



1. The sentence quoted by Mr. Scrope in connection with Brent 

 Knoll, is applied in my work to "terraces of erosion" (not "marine 

 terraces of erosion ") near Glastonbury. 



2. While expressing an opinion that the Twyford terraces have 

 been formed by oceanic currents or waves, I have added, " unless in- 

 deed we have recourse to the idea of a ponderous body of land ice 

 moving down the valley, and scooping out large grooves in the 

 sides of the chalk hills." 



3. Instead of admitting that some of the terraces may have been 

 formed by man, I have used the words " many " and " were." I 

 have, however, opposed the idea of all or even the greater part of 

 the terraces being artificial, Mr. Scrope has not quoted my princi- 

 pal objections to this idea, some of which run as follows : — 



"A large proportion of these terraces are longitudinally inclined to such a degree 

 as to render the ' descent of silt ' theory untenable. Those very characteristics which 

 at first seem to render it improbable that many of the terraces were once sea-margins, 

 tell with equal force against their having been formed by man. Their irregularity is 

 often bewildering, and yet they graduate into the more general form of the ground, 

 and, in most cases, conform in longitudinal inclination to the summit contours of the 

 slopes on which they occur, so as to suggest a natural rather than an artificial cause. 

 .... [If these terraces were made in the middle ages, and cultivated by difi'erent 

 tenants, each of whom worked a particular terrace, how is it that we have no record 

 of such a custom .''.... the immense numbers of sheep grazed in the middle ages, 

 and the consequent value of down land, must in a very great measure have prevented 

 its being cultivated.— Mr. Batgent, of "Winchester.] .... On the shores of the 

 Menai Strait, and the desiccated branch of it which runs from Port Dinorwic to 

 Bangor, the slopes of marine drift are varied by small irregular terraces not dis- 

 tinguishable in form from those of many parts of the chalk districts. . . . The 

 shores of Morecambe Bay, from a few feet above the sea level to at least 600 feet, are 

 in many places marked by both terraces of deposition and erosion. Those which 

 occur at high levels, on ground which could never have been cultivated, as on the 

 west side of Hampsfell, are chiefly terraces of erosion. In this district, as elsewhere, 

 ridges have been artificially formed as boundaries between fields, but they are quite 

 distinct from the terraces under consideration." — I might have added to the above 

 natural terraces, thousands on the northern slopes of the Grampians extending down 

 to the shores of the Moray Firth, etc., etc. 



