ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OP THE PRESIDENT. xlix 



Further to the east, the depression of Peasemarsh has been filled 

 with detrital matter, similar to the above, according to the author's 

 statement, with the exception of an admixture of flints somewhat 

 abraded. He conceives, in opposition to the views of Mr. Austen, 

 that the gravel was not collected here when Peasemarsh was an 

 estuary *, but is referable to the same general cause as the flint-gravels 

 in other localities. A similar depression occurs near Dorking, 

 occupied also by Drift, which contains, however, fewer flints and a 

 much larger proportion of loam. This depression is opposite the 

 chasm in the Chalk, through which the river Mole makes its way, as 

 Peasemarsh is opposite a similar chasm which makes a passage for the 

 Wey. In this region also the Drift is accumulated at several points 

 on the Weald Clay. The most remarkable accumulation of this kind 

 is that at Hever, on the verge of the Med way valley, at an ele- 

 vation of 60 or 80 feet above the river. It contains flints, prin- 

 cipally angular, and fragments of clinkers and cherts of the Greensand. 

 It is about nine miles from the nearest part of the Chalk- escarp- 

 ment. The author infers that the transporting currents must here 

 have had directions/rom the Chalk-escarpment, since the flints, as you 

 recede from them, become smaller and smaller. These currents must 

 therefore have had directions opposite to those of the Darent and 

 Medway. 



At Dover and Folkstone there are cases of accumulations of Drift 

 exactly analogous to that at Brighton. The author very justly insists 

 on the importance of the continuity of the Drift in these places, from . 

 the masses in the coombes and hollows to the thinner layers which 

 envelope the sides and tops of the surrounding hills. If this con- 

 tinuity be admitted, I can hardly conceive the possibility of this Drift 

 being referable to any agency of which the mode of action was very 

 different from that to which the author attributes it. 



In the conclusion of this paper the author has entered into a some- 

 what detailed development of his views respecting the agencies by 

 which he conceives the transport and deposition of the superficial 

 masses of detritus to have been effected. It should be understood 

 that the discussion of this question is independent in a great degree 

 of the general denudation of the Weald, which must have been in a 

 great measure completed before the operations here considered took 

 place ; and the movements, supposed by the author to have generated 

 transporting waves, or to have produced faults like those which, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Austen's statements, appear to have disturbed the detrital 

 masses about Peasemarsh, must have been long posterior to those far 

 greater movements which, in conjunction with subsequent denuda- 

 tion, gave to the district its present general configuration. Assuming 

 then this antecedent configuration, the first question is — What was 

 the general position of the district with reference to the sea-level ? 

 At a period immediately antecedent to the Drift of which we are 

 speaking, this position is clearly indicated along a part of the southern 

 coast, by the ancient pebble-beach at Brighton, subjacent to the 



* See Mr. Austen's Paper " On the Gravel Beds of the Valley of the Wey," 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., Nov. 1851, p. 278. 



VOL. VIII. d 



