Life of R. A. C. Godicin- Austen. 5 



hibiting "lines of troughs aad an advancing platform indicative 

 of an old coast-line." A more striking proof is derived from the 

 mollusca in the Selsea deposits, which indicate by their habits, 

 shallow-vp-ater and marginal conditions, that the eastern extension 

 of the Channel at that period may be represented by a line extend- 

 ing from the coast of Sussex to that of Normandy, and that the 

 remaining portion of what is now the eastern end of the English 

 Channel was in the condition of dryland.^ Subsequently, the Selsea 

 erratic boulders were drifted into the position they now occupy. 



Mr. Godwin-Austen showed, so early as 1837, that in Devonshire 

 there were terraces of gravel fringing the valleys; and in 1851 and 

 1855, in correlating these and other Quaternary deposits, he con- 

 sidered that the ancient low-level alluvia of the Thames and Seine 

 valleys, and the old beach and the Elephant-beds of Brighton, were 

 anterior to the Boulder-clay, and he was further of opinion that river- 

 and ice-action had played an important part in producing these 

 valley deposits. He also suggested that the Thames was originally 

 a tributary of the Ehine.^ 



In 1855 Mr. Austen brought before the Geological Society his 

 celebrated paper " On the possible Extension of the Coal-measures 

 beneath the South-eastern part of England " — the most important 

 and suggestive philosophical essay which the Society has received. 

 Judging from facts brought to light in working the Coal-measures 

 of Belgium and the North of France, " and reasoning also on theo- 

 retical considerations connected with the extension of the old coal- 

 growth in the west of Europe, Mr. Godwin-Austen concluded that 

 Coal-measures might possibly extend beneath the south-eastern part 

 of England." Illustrating his I'eraarks by a map, " he showed that 

 the Coal-measures which thin out under the Chalk near Therouanne 

 probably set in again at or near Calais, and are prolonged (beneath 

 the Tertiary strata and the Chalk) in the line of the Thames Valley 

 parallel with the North Downs, and continue thence under the valley 

 of the Kennet, into the Bath and Bristol coal area. He showed, 

 upon well-considered theoretical grounds, that the Coal-measures 

 of a large portion of England, France, and Belgium were once 

 continuous, and that the present coal-fields were merely fragments 

 of a great original deposit, which he inferred had been broken up in 

 two directions previously to the deposition of the Secondary rocks. 

 He showed that the main line of disturbance had a general east and 

 west direction, that part of it formed the great anticlinal of the 

 Ardennes, by which the Belgian coal-field had been tilted up, and 

 brought to the surface, and that the Mendips with the Somerset coal- 

 field were on the same line of strike." ^ 



This is but a brief outline of the general conclusions arrived at in 



^ "We are indebted to the Addresses to the Geological Society of Mr. "W. Hopkius, 

 1852, and of Col. J. E. Portlock, 1857, for notices of these papers. 



- Prestwich, Phil. Trans. 1864, p. 249 ; Lyell, Antiquity of Man, ed. 4, pp. 323, 

 330. 



•' We take these remarks from the Report, by Prof. Prestwich, on the probabilities 

 of finding coal in the South of England, p. 146 (lleport Coal Comm. vol. i. 1871). 



