Strata of the Islands of Seeland and Moen. 253 



to 500 feet high, and in many places composed of white chalk from top to 

 bottom. The beds are partly vertical, partly curved, and have undergone 

 extreme disturbance. As we find a range of the English chalk in Purbeck 

 and the Isle of Wight, where the strata are much dislocated and thrown on 

 their edges, while in the immediate neighbourhood of the line of convulsion 

 strata of similar chalk are traced over a wide area in horizontal or slightly 

 tilted position, so in Denmark we remark the like contrast between the state 

 of the white chalk with flints, which occur in the neighbouring islands of 

 Seeland and Moen. 



The first view which I obtained of the Moen cliffs was from the sea, when 

 I passed them at the distance of about a mile, in a steam boat. Although 

 they much resemble the white cliffs of the south of England, yet I could see, 

 even at this distance, that they were more subdivided by deep ravines into 

 separate and distinct masses. The soil at the bottom of these ravines is dark, 

 mostly clothed with wood, and comes quite down to the sea. They are in 

 fact narrow clefts, coinciding with lines of fracture and dislocation ; vast 

 masses of sand, clay, and gravel, of the incumbent boulder formation, having 

 been thrown down bodily into chasms. At the same distance, may be seen 

 in front of, and in the lower part of most of the perpendicular chalk cliffs, an 

 inclined plane resembling a talus, which I afterwards ascertained to consist, 

 in many places, of a sloping mass of solid chalk in situ. 



1 began my examination of Moen at the nortliern extremity of the line of high cliffs, and found 

 the first opening, or narrow valley, near a rock called Taleren. A deep ravine here comes down, 

 at right angles to the line of coast. At the bottom is a small stream which has worn its way 

 through clay and sand. The channel is so narrow and steep that I climbed up it with difficulty. 

 On both sides are walls of chalk, from one to 300 feet in height, but the wall on the southern 

 side, or what, with reference to the streamlet, may be called the right side, does not consist of 

 chalk to the bottom, the fundamental mass bemg composed of beds, occasionally distinct, of blue 

 clay and yellow sand, which at first conveyed to Dr. Forchhammer the notion of an alternation of 

 deposits of chalk and clay. But when we climb to the head of the ravine, and obtain a general 

 view of the southern wall above alluded to, we see that there must have been two fissures into 

 which the clay and sand have been introduced, one vertical and at right angles to the coast, and 

 the other in a direction nearly parallel to the coast, but with an oblique hade inclined towards the 

 sea. The effect of the latter fissure has been to allow a mass of stratified sand and gravel to slide 

 down bodily in sloping beds, dipping seaward at a high angle. Its appearance, as seen from 

 above, is represented in the annexed sketch, where the perpendicular cliff" is more than 200 feet 

 high. The dark strata at the bottom represent clay and sand, immediately below which is the 

 bed of the torrent. It will be seen, that the continuous beds of flint are in some places vertical, 

 and in others curved. Clay and sand similar to that in the ravine, and containing gravel and 

 boulders, are found on the top of the chalk, at the head of the ravine, and on the surface of the 

 country in the interior. 



