228 



PKOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



of the Severn valley. The Old Red mountains and older Silurian 

 rocks which border the northern edge of the South -"Welsh coal-field, 

 as well as the Devonian promontory of Cornwall and the mass of 

 North Devon, isolated as they appear to be from the unconformity of 

 the Secondary rocks, are only apparently so through the great over- 

 lap. Could we uncover and expose the old Palaeozoic floors or land- 

 surfaces with all their irregularities, doubtless we should find 

 that the eastern face of the Palaeozoic plain would stretch away 

 under the north-eastern and south-eastern counties and the 

 German Ocean, the newer rocks filling up the irregularities in the 

 old land-surface-— this denuded plain being either produced by the 

 eroding agency of the Secondary seas during the slow depression 

 of the area they then occupied, or previously sculptured and fashioned 

 into hills and valleys prior to the deposition of the Secondary or 

 Mesozoic rocks. The Irish Sea, the English Channel, and the 

 German Ocean are only hollows in the land occupied by the several 

 seas around the British coasts, any important change in which 

 would alter our relative position to the continent either to the north, 

 the east, or the south, and in case of upward movements, would 

 reveal those accumulations which have gone on since the close of the 

 Glacial epoch. Could the valleys of the North Sea or St. George's 

 Channel, the English Channel, and the German Ocean become again 

 dry land, we should again be restored to and form part of the great 

 European plain or plateau, and those stratigraphical masses that are 

 now abruptly cut off at the coast all round the British Islands would 

 be traced in broken continuity over their once continuous or origi- 

 nally connected area. Eurther, could we strip off all the Secondary 

 and Tertiary rocks, and reveal or expose the extension of the older 

 or Palaeozoic series towards Germany on the east, and Prance on 

 the south, then the vexed question of the old physical geology and 

 geography (palaeography) of Britain and the relation and correlation 

 of our area with that of Europe would be revealed ; the once 

 continuous terrestrial surface joining us to Europe, and probably 

 America, on which grew and flourished the flora which furnished 

 the materials of our coal, could be determined; the probable 

 relation of the underlying or partly contemporaneous Devonian to 

 both the Silurian and Carboniferous ; the reason for the isolation of 

 the Old Red Sandstone in different geographical areas, marine in 

 one area, freshwater in another— the one with a well-defined base 

 and top, the other having as yet no discovered base, but having a 

 well-defined passage into the Carboniferous ; such and a hundred 

 other problems would be solved could this old floor be ours to 

 examine. A rise of a thousand feet would reveal much of all the hidden 

 older land east of long. 2° W., or all eastward of that which extends 

 from the southern termination of the Penine chain and Charnwood 

 Forest ; for we now know that as far south as Northampton^ and at 

 less than 1000 feet " in depth, the Carboniferous Limestone occurs. 

 Still further south, and but little deeper (1184 feet), the Coal- 

 measures have been proved at Burford, in each case yielding the 

 characteristic fossils, the limestone at Northampton being crowded 



