44 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



and eaten by the sea. Possibly Mr. Martin will 

 admit that in face of this one fact the sinking 

 land theory is more tenable than the rising ; for 

 a rising land would have shallowed the sea, 

 raised up protecting banks of sand, and shown 

 signs similar to those in places where land- 

 rising is indisputable, as on the south-east coast 

 of Kent. 



Again, between the Isle of Sheppey and Graveney 

 lie Graveney Marshes. Mr. Martin and our editor 

 will, I hope, excuse me for seeming prolix ; but 

 these places are bound up in the question, as will be 

 seen by reference to any map. Once, not many 

 years ago, figuratively speaking, this was dry land 

 between the two points, intersected by the then 

 tiny Swale. Proof is, that a few feet down lies 

 firm London clay. Then as the land sunk, the sea 

 came in further and swamped gradually the land, 

 hence the name " marshes." Man's ingenuity has 

 drained and banked them by sea walls. The 

 proof of all this lies there, as I shall mention 

 later. What is it to-day between the island and 

 the mainland ? A shallow estuary, one might 

 almost call it, in which the tide runs out for miles, 

 where lie great sands through which ships thread 

 a precarious passage. A curious phenomenon is 

 this : the land sinking, and consequently the 

 sea deepening ; and the sea itself hindering its 

 work by silting up, through its own eddies, its 

 deepening bed. 



Now let Mr. Martin put on dredger's boots, and, 

 armed with a spade, wander out at low tide as far 

 as he can and dig. He will first find shingle, 

 gravel and sand, washed from down the coast, 

 interspersed with Thanet sand blocks and septaria 

 from the London clay. Beneath these he will find 

 a loamy soil containing teeth and bones of horse 

 and ox, and occasionally a portion of soaked, 

 crumbling British pottery. Amongst this he will 

 also come across calcined oyster and cockle shells, 

 shells of the Unio or river mussel, and occasional 

 wood ashes. 



Yet this is sea bottom to-day. Is more proof 

 wanted ? Then let him search at this low-tide 

 level a little more, and he will find, possibly, 

 some ghastly and gruesome relics of the "Lost 

 Churches of Seasalter," which, with foundations 

 sapped by the encroaching sea, fell into ruin and 

 decay, and now lie buried under the ocean wave. 

 A fragmentary human pelvis was once in my 

 possession, and proved this. 



To return, I ask Mr. Martin again to explain 

 how the rising of the land would assist in cutting 

 out that gully at Bishopsteal ? I claim, first, that 

 there never was watershed there— in recent times, 

 at least — enough to give a large supply of water ; 

 secondly, to have cut out a gully which in the 

 length of a quarter of a mile attains a depth of 

 fifty feet coupled with a not inconsiderable 



width, and knowing that this same stream 

 must at least have continued another three 

 miles during the last thousand years or so, pre- 

 sumably cutting out at the same rate, a stream 

 would be necessary which would combine the 

 minuteness of a mountain torrent with the force of 

 a Niagara ; thirdly, my memory may be here at 

 fault, for it is nine years or more since I saw the 

 place, but I fancy the bed of the stream curves 

 away inland in a direction leading towards Heme 

 Bay. I do not remember clearly, and only speak 

 here for the sake of knowledge, and Mr. Martin 

 may correct me. The bed of such a stream as that 

 mentioned above, cutting through rock of the 

 softness of Thanet Sands, should be as straight as 

 an arrow. Is it ? I believe not. Again, such a 

 stream would, meeting with the Thames and 

 Medway currents, have raised a considerable 

 " bar," which it has not. 



The only explanation of Bishopstone Dell fully 

 coincident with the facts, general features and 

 history of the neighbourhood, is that thereabouts 

 occurs a fault, or fissure in the Thanet Beds, of 

 which advantage has been taken by the drainings 

 of a scanty rainfall. There are no river terraces, 

 or ancient banks of the sides of the dell. In its 

 bottom there is next to no alluvial deposit. There 

 is no evidence that it was cut out by water. 

 Presumption is all on the other side. 



Now, as regards Hampton, Mr. Martin is 

 mistaken when he says there are no cliffs to speak 

 of. I am alluding to a depression almost a quarter 

 of a mile wide existing between Hampton cliffs 

 (average height at least fifty feet) and Swalecliff 

 (with average height of forty-three feet). This 

 depression is, as I have said, an ancient river bed. 

 In it are found mammoth and also hippopotamus and 

 rhinoceros remains ; apparently nothing else. The 

 banks of this " bed " are exposed, they run up the 

 London Clay and overlie it to the height (from sea 

 level) of twelve feet ; and at the centre meanders a 

 tiny stream. " Apparently plain proof" say those 

 of the land-rising theory ; but they say this simply 

 because observation is lacking, There are the 

 remains, or beds, of two streams there. The older 

 one, of plain river sand and its giant mammal 

 remains, showing traces of a rising land. The 

 second, and later, a shingle bed, cutting through 

 the faint strata of the older one, containing no 

 sand, but bones of domestic animals, and fragments 

 of Roman and Romano-British pottery. A hiatus 

 of fifty thousand years. This newer stream has 

 constantly tried to widen its bed — conclusive 

 proof of land sinking. Had the land risen, the- 

 tendency would have been to narrow and deepen 

 it, In fact, so growing has been its tendency that 

 it has been banked and filled with a miniature 

 lock-gate. 



No, one is forced to admit, I think, that the 



