18G On the Origin of the Terraces, Balks, or Lynchets 



the foot of these slopes, can have failed to notice them contouring 

 round the projecting headlands and far up into the intervening 

 combs ; and few can have done so without forming some theory ; 

 as to their origin. I had myself entertained no doubt as to their 

 artificial production, but a few years since I was startled by reading 

 in a scientific Journal an article written by Mr. D. Mackintosh, 

 F.G.S., announcing the opinion that these terraces " thousands in 

 number, are so many raised sea-beaches/' left at the height where 

 they now stand by the waves during the progress of excavation by 

 the sea of the valleys in which they occur. (" Geological Magazine," 

 vol. iii., p. 69.) I took the liberty of opposing this view, which I 

 considered perfectly preposterous, in a communication printed in 

 the same Journal (" Geological Magazine," vol. iii., p. 293) ; and 

 as the subject will probably possess some interest to Wiltshiremen, 

 the following extracts from that paper may be acceptable to the 

 readers of this Magazine : — 



" Any one who lives in a neighbourhood where these banks occur 

 may see them, if not in course of formation from their beginning, 

 yet growing yearly before his eyes wherever the hill-slope above 

 is under arable cultivation. In this case as the course of the 

 plough almost always follows the more or less horizontal tread of 

 the surface (which is also the direction of the banks), the ridge of 

 soil raised by the mould-board of the plough has everywhere a 

 tendency, through the action of gravity upon it, to fall down-hill 

 rather than upwards. This down-hill tendency of the disturbed 

 soil is greatly assisted by the wash of heavy rains upon the loosened 

 materials of the sloping surface ; and the result is that year by 

 year the whole surface soil of the slope, when under continuous 

 arable culture, is, slowly indeed but surely, travelling downwards, 

 until it is stopped either by the cessation in that direction of the 

 disturbing action of the plough, or by some hedge, or wall, or 

 bank, which limits this, Hence it is that wherever a hedge or 

 wall forms the lower limit of any arable surface possessing a con- 

 siderable inclination, an accumulation of mould or made-earth will 

 be found on the upper side, often several feet in depth, and forming 

 a bank by that much elevated above the surface of the soil on 



