370 On the Geological Value of Recent Occurrences. 



ON THE GEOLOGICAL VALUE OF RECENT 

 OCCURRENCES. 



BY GEOKGE E. ROBERTS. 



Not unfrequently in the passing, and by many scarce-heeded, 

 news of the day, facts in the physical condition of the earth's sur- 

 face are chronicled, which, rightly studied, are of high geological 

 importance. As "Intellectual Observers," we may aid very 

 greatly our comprehension of bygone physical events by seeking 

 out these apparently valueless phenomena of modern times, and 

 comparing their results with those operations of past ages 

 which our acceptation of Lyellian philosophy teaches us were 

 the accomplishments of like ordinary, and, in our day, unre- 

 garded means. If these principles rule our daily observations, 

 much that has heretofore been unseen and uncared for will be 

 perceived, and found replete with instruction. Risings and sink- 

 ings of the surface will be noted as going on simultaneously in 

 many parts of the British Isles, and the rate of growth — so to 

 speak — of land above the sea, of sandbanks from wind action, 

 of morasses by the extension of Sphagni and other bog- plants, 

 and of tide-covered estuaries into areas of permanent land will 

 become ascertained facts. Observations of this kind are pecu- 

 liarly easy of record just now in the neighbourhood of Lon- 

 don, by reason of the trench-diging into the alluvium of the 

 Thames for the main drainage works, and I notice with much 

 pleasure that one gentleman; officially connected with these 

 works, Mr. Cresy, is taking accurate sections of the depth and 

 variety of character displayed in that alluvial deposit, in the 

 formation of which, during the last 2000 years, man and the 

 river seem to have been co-workers. In the study of these 

 modern physical conditions, a re-action resembling that of the 

 new school of German Bibliopoles, who are. collecting and 

 laying up in store the ephemeral publications of the day — the 

 street ballad, the tradesman's bill, and the thousand-and one 

 circulars of social and unionist character which flutter our library 

 tables, seems to have set in among geologists; with this differ- 

 ence — that he who studies human life collects for the learning 

 of the future, for the delight of antiquaries in centuries to come ; 

 while the philosopher of Nature collects the new-born rarities 

 of the day that they may aid his comprehension of kindred 

 workings in the ages which are past. 



A very notable example of a modern occurrence thus 

 throwing light backwards upon ancient physical story I see in 

 the Times newspaper of the 5th April. It is worthy of pre- 

 servation in a remarkable degree, for it illustrates in a clc;ir and 

 decided manner phenomena of ancient deltas and cstuarine 



