326 THE CFALK AND DBIFT IN MOEN AND EUGEN. [Aug. 1 899, 



Prof. JuDD congratulated the Authors on having so courageously 

 taken up the study of sections which had given rise to very great 

 divergences of opinion among geologists. The caution of the 

 Authors in speculating upon causes was not less admirable than 

 their boldness in attacking this difficult problem. Lyell had 

 evidently felt hesitation in referring to these sections, after his 

 original description of them in 1834, till his sections were confirmed 

 by the detailed drawings of Puggaard. Possibly some of the phe- 

 nomena exhibited might be due to irregular subterranean solution 

 of the Chalk. It was pointed out that vast masses of Tertiary 

 strata, from Eocene to Crag, are 'piped down' into the Chalk over 

 vast areas in the North Downs, and if that district were cut open in 

 sea-cliffs, complexities would probably be exposed rivalling those of 

 Moen and Eiigen. 



The President and Prof. Watts also spoke. 



The Eev, Edwin Hill, in replying, said he wished that former 

 writers could have been all present : discussion would have been 

 warm, for each repudiated his predecessors' views. They all had 

 supposed the phenomena due to the causes which had disturbed the 

 Chalk : however, those causes had folded the Chalk, and the Drifts 

 were not folded. As to ice-transport, it would be like transporting 

 the Flamborough peninsula : the areas each showed several miles of 

 continuous Chalk-cliff. Likeness to Cromer there was none. Where 

 a ravine was steep on one side, the Drift would sink on to the other 

 side. If the question about ' peneplain ' meant. Had the areas at one 

 time been above sea- level ? no doubt they had, and had been much 

 furrowed. As to melting from below, earth-heat naturally pro- 

 duced that. Subterranean erosion was a very natural view, but the 

 evidence seemed unfavourable to it. 



Prof. Bonnet said that he would only add a few words to 

 Mr. Hill's answer. He must repeat emphatically that in Moen and 

 Riigen the Drift was a mere local incident in the Chalk (which was 

 clearly in situ), while at Cromer the opposite was the case. It was 

 impossible to compare the two districts. If subterranean erosion 

 had occurred, where were the loose flints ? The term ' peneplain ' had 

 been mentioned. For himself he had vague ideas as to what that 

 mongrel word meant, and he thought that its indefiniteness added 

 to its charm for some minds ; but if the Isle of Wight from near 

 Yarmouth to High Down was a peneplain, so were Moen and 

 Riigen : if not, they were not. He had read of shells (3 species 

 marine, and some freshwater at another spot) being found in the 

 Riigen Drift. They were extremely local, and he had seen none. He 

 could quite understand that some of the speakers would have been 

 glad if the subject had been further complicated by the expression 

 of any opinion which the Authors might have formed as to the mode 

 in which the Drift had been deposited ; but that desire would have 

 to go ungratified. He pointed out that Mr. Lamplugh, by ascribing 

 the contortion in the Chalk at the railway-station pit in Kiigen to the 

 thrust of land-ice, as in one or two other cases in his remarks, was 

 quietly begging a fundamental question. 



