Vol. 52.] PLIOCENE DEPOSITS OF HOLLAND. 740 



The attention of English geologists was drawn to Dr. Lorie's 

 researches by Mr. C. Reid, in 1886, 1 and that gentleman has since 

 dealt with the subject incidentally in his admirable work on the 

 'Pliocene Deposits of Britain'; 2 but I do not think that these 

 discoveries, the most, important that have been made for many 

 years in Pliocene geology, have received the attention which they 

 deserve, and I offer no apology for further alluding to them at some 

 length, especially as I believe that they furnish a clue to guide us 

 in working out some of our own problems. My apologies are 

 indeed due to Dr. Lorie (whose courtesy in placing all his material 

 at my disposal I gladly acknowledge), in that I have ventured to 

 differ from some of the conclusions which he has reached. 



The consideration of this subject led me to review the work in 

 which, for nearly twenty years, I was engaged in co-operation with 

 my lamented friend the late S. V. Wood, Jun. This work was 

 wholly interrupted by his death in 1884, and until a few months 

 ago no opportunity presented itself to me for resuming it. I desire 

 in this paper, in the first place, to point out a few cases in which 

 I am now disposed to modify the opinions which we formerly ex- 

 pressed, and wherein I still differ from the views of other geologists. 

 I shall, secondly, endeavour to show that a great part of the beds 

 met with in the subsoil of Holland are considerably newer than the 

 Scaldisien of Belgium, to which they are usually referred ; and lastly, 

 by grouping together the different facts which bear on the question, 

 I shall attempt to sketch out a rough but continuous outline of the 

 history of the Anglo-Dutch basin during the newer Pliocene period. 

 For this purpose it will be necessary to refer from time to time to 

 the work of other observers, but I will do so as briefly as possible. 



ii. cokkelation of the english and the dljtch and 

 Belgian Ceags. 



In the opinion of Sir Joseph Prestwich, the sea of the Coralline 

 Crag may have attained a depth of from 500 to 1000 feet, 3 but 

 Mr. Wood and I always thought this estimate excessive. From 

 considerations which I hope hereafter to lay before this Society, it 

 appears to me that our suggestion of from 250 to 300 feet may still 

 have been somewhat too high. However this may be, it is clear 

 that an elevation of the Suffolk area took place after the accumula- 

 tion of the Coralline Crag, since the upper beds of the Bed Crag, 

 deposited in shallow water, are bedded against it, and sometimes at a 

 lower level. The upheaval of the Pliocene sea-bottom has been much 

 greater in the South of England. At Lenham, in Kent, fossili- 

 ferous beds, approximately of the age of the Coralline Crag, occupy 



1 ' Nature,' vol. xxxiv. p. 341. Mr. Eeid points out in this article the connexion 

 between the elevation of the Weald and the depression which has affected the 

 Diestien beds found in the Utrecht boring. As to the upheaval of the southern 

 and the subsidence of the northern part of the English Crag area, see S. V. 

 Wood, Jun., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxvi. (1880) p. 458. 



2 Mem. Geol. Surv. 1890. 



3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. (1871) p. 135. 



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