The late Prof. Phillips's Address at Westward Ho ! 307 



Address delivered by Professor Phillips at Westward Ho ! North 

 Devon, August 26, 1869. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — All that we now see in action — all the 

 force of the waters and all the effect of the wind — has been in opera- 

 tion through an immensity of time. At some time removed from the 

 present was formed the deposit which we have just been looking at. 

 At some earlier time than that the sea-coast underwent great changes 

 of level with reference to the water, and here you have one of the 

 most conspicuous examples of a raised beach, proving to you that at 

 the time when it was formed the action of the water was of the same 

 nature as now it is in the distribution of these large pebbles, that 

 these pebbles are of the same order, coming from the same quarter, 

 and finally ground down to masses of about the same magnitude. 

 You see, also, that the ancient deposit of the beach was of con- 

 siderable thickness, and over the pebbles other matters have increased 

 which deserve a careful scrutiny. At an earlier date than that this 

 country was raised out of the water under which it was formed. 

 All the features of North Devon and South Devon primarily depend 

 on the movements which have taken place from below, which have 

 uplifted ridges of mountains and formed in the alternating spaces 

 hollows. Then there has come over the surface the enormous action 

 of long time and atmospheric waste, and what we see at the present 

 moment in every hill and valley, every waterfall and every stone, is 

 not merely the great force of ancient nature which sketched out the 

 forms of continents and islands, but the subsequent action of ordinary 

 daily, hourly, atmospheric agencies upon the surface ; so that many 

 persons who have satisfied themselves of the importance of diluvial 

 agency in producing great changes on the surface of the earth are 

 very much in the habit of believing that there is no necessity for 

 supposing that anything else than rain and rivers is required to 

 produce all the main changes, all the principal features of our interior 

 geography. Now, if you keep in your minds the fundamental pro- 

 position that every one of these stratifications we see on the north 

 and on the south have been formed under the influence of the sea, 

 that these almost vertical rocks were at one time laid flat, that they 

 have laminations in which are shells of the period, and many marks 

 proving beyond a doubt the original nearly-horizontal deposition of 

 this strata, you will perceive that in order to have the first elemen- 

 tary notions of the relation of the different parts of the land one 

 to the other, we must study those monuments that are so clear (and 

 nowhere so clear as on this coast), of the fact of the immense 

 elevation of the ancient sea-beds in order to produce the main 

 features of our interior land. 



Now, as you pass from this part to the northern coast there are 

 some undulations in the general course of the stratification, but in a 

 general manner they rise from the northward, and the lower strata 

 of North Devon are found on the northern shore. Afterwards as 

 you pass by the stratification of Bideford and that district in which 

 the Culm deposits occur (as referred to by Mr. Hall), as you go 

 southward the stratification undergoes many undulations, some parts 



