314 EOCENE PERIOD. [Ch. XXII. 



which have been removed by denudation, that hill, instead of 

 rising to the height of 800 feet, would be more than trebled 

 in altitude *, and be about 2700 feet high. It would then 

 tower far above the highest outlyers of tertiary strata which 

 are scattered over our chalk, for Inkpen Hill, the greatest 

 elevation of chalk in England, rises only 1011 feet above the 

 level of the sea. 



Some geologists who have thought it necessary to suppose 

 all the strata of the London and Hampshire basins to have 

 been once continuous, have estimated the united thickness of 

 the three marine Eocene groups before described,, as amounting 

 to 1300 feet, and have been bold enough to imagine a mass of 

 this height to have been once superimposed upon the chalk 

 which formerly covered the axis of the Weald f . Hence they 

 were led to infer that Crowborough Hill was once 4000 feet 

 high, and was then cut down from 4000 to 800 feet by diluvial 

 action. 



We, on the contrary, deem it wholly unnecessary to suppose 

 any removal of rocks newer than the secondary from the cen- 

 tral parts of the valley of the Weald ; and we suppose the 

 waste of the older rocks to have been caused gradually during 

 the emergence of the country. The small strips of land which 

 were first protruded in an open sea above the level of the waves, 

 may have been entirely carried away, again and again, in the 

 intervals between successive movements, until at last a great 

 number of reefs and islands rising at once, afforded protection 

 to each other against the attacks of the waves, and the lands 

 began to increase. We do not conceive, therefore, that a 

 mountain ridge first rose to the height of more than 2000 feet, 

 and was then lowered to less than half that elevation ; but that 

 a stratified mass, more than 2000 feet thick, was, by the con- 

 tinual stripping off of the uppermost beds as they rose, 

 diminished to a thickness of about 800 feet. 



It is not our intention, at present, to point out the applica- 



* Phil. Mag. and Annals, No. 26, New Series, p. 117. 

 f Martin, ibid. 



