Ch. XXII.] RECAPITULATION. 321 



those rocks in particular, which are common to the Paris basin 

 and Central France, being wanting, or extremely rare, in the 

 English tertiary formations. 



3. The Eocene deposits of England are generally conform- 

 able to the chalk, being horizontal where the beds of chalk are 

 horizontal, and vertical where they are vertical ; so that both 

 series of rocks appear to have participated in nearly the same 

 movements. 



4. It is not possible to define the limits of the ancient bor- 

 ders of the tertiary sea in the south-east of England, in the 

 same manner as can be frequently done in those countries where 

 the secondary rocks are unconformable to the tertiary. 



5. Although the tertiary deposits are chiefly confined to the 

 tracts called the basins of London and Hampshire, insulated 

 patches of them are, nevertheless, found on some of the highest 

 summits of the chalk intervening between these basins. 



6. These outliers, however, do not necessarily prove that 

 the great mass of tertiary strata was once continuous between 

 the basins of London and Hampshire, and over other parts of 

 the south-east of England now occupied by secondary rocks. 



7. On the contrary, it is probable that these secondary dis- 

 tricts were gradually elevated and denuded when the basins of 

 London and Hampshire were still submarine, and while they 

 were gradually becoming filled up with tertiary sand and clay. 



8. If, in illustration of this theory, we examine one of the 

 districts thus "supposed to have been denuded, we find in the 

 Valley of the Weald decided proofs, that since the emergence 

 of the secondary rocks, an immense mass of chalk and subjacent 

 formations has been removed by the force of water. 



9. We infer from the existence of large valleys along the 

 outcrop of the softer beds, and of parallel chains of hills where 

 harder rocks come up to the surface, that water was the re- 

 moving cause ; and from the shape of the escarpments pre- 

 sented by the harder rocks, and the distribution of alluvium 

 over different parts of the surface of the Weald district, we 



VOL. III. Y 



