38 



fine and sweeping proportions, is now occupied by the little stagger- 

 ing Blackwater, obviously lost in the magnitude of its surroundings. 

 In fact, if we substitute the Thames for the sea in fig. i and 2 as the 

 ultimate receiver, and call the A gorge Aldershot and the E gorge 

 Guildford, and bear in mind that A 1, B and F, and the lower E are 

 now all one river (as in fig. 2) under the name of the Wey, these 

 figures bear a very striking resemblance to the actual physical facts. 

 Yet they were drawn with no reference whatever to that or any par- 

 ticular locality, and are only as has been said a text book illustration 

 in a varied form. Another cause is added here to the mastery of E 

 over A, since the Wey joins the Thames at a lower level than the 

 Blackwater Loddon. When the sea is the direct receiver this factor 

 could not arise. 



An examination of any good map on which the contours can be 

 followed will suggest more than one place where the old Frome- 

 Solent has been suffering similar spoliation. Since during the whole 

 of its more extended ancient course it was passing down a dip-slope, 

 it has been losing by the recession of the escarpments. It is only 

 when it arrives within the security of the Dorset syncline, with 

 tertiary strata dipping laterally towards its bed on either hand, that 

 it resists further depredations. In this respect its next door 

 neighbour the Thames is in precisely the same case. The Bristol 

 Avon, having now a north-westerly course, is much in the position 

 of A 2, the reversed obsequent middle portion of A ; whilst the Welsh 

 Wey across the Bristol Channel, the drowned Severn Valley, is the 

 representation of A i. 



This succession, of Wey, Bristol Avon, and Kennet-Thames, 

 forms one of the most suggestive river series we have. The rail- 

 way between Bath and Newbury passes through the scene of the 

 old Avon and Kennet rivalry, in which, as ever, the Kennet has 

 suffered by the retreat of the escarpment within which it is now con- 

 fined. It is an A 3 (fig. 2). In the neighbourhood of Devizes the 

 battlefields can be explored. It was a campaign of many crises and 

 is indeed still in progress, except that the hand of man by means of 

 the Kennet-Avon Canal has endeavoured to effect a truce. 



About due north from the mouth of the Avon, transversely 

 across the Severn estuary, we note the mouth of the Wey, and a 

 good physical map or a chart will show a deep channel between two 

 reefs of rock connecting the two rivers. Lying as it does athwart 

 the main estuary, this channel affords a very suggestive link between 

 Wey and Avon. It seems as though the ancient Wey once poured 

 through a deep gorge of carboniferous limestone similar to that of its 

 now reversed lower part the Avon, at Clifton. This is a case where 

 the sea has given a verdict which we may call final, until some 

 further emergence of our western lands may occur in the course of 

 ages. But we need not let the salt water which now ebbs and flows 

 in that old valley obscure our view of the past, any more than we 

 suffer it to in the Solent. We can picture in the Bristol Channel 

 the valley of some westward flowing stream from the flanks of the 

 Mendips, similar to F in figs. 1 and 2, which cut its way back until 

 it annexed the Severn and the Warwick Avon and gave them a 



