204 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
dation of the Wealden area than of the chalk and other cretaceous 
rocks on the French, or more solid coast. 
Worn by the incessant beating of the waves and nishing of the 
tides, the narrow isthmus, stretching fi-om Folkestone to Boulogne, 
that formed the last connecting link was broken through, and the 
Channel tidal-wave passed on to meet its brother-wave, which, 
parted from it at the Lizard Point, had swept round the British 
Isles to face it again in the " narrow sea." The form and direction 
of this old channel-crack may even now be traced on any nautical 
map by a pencil line run over the marks of greatest depths, as noted 
in fathoms for the sailor's guidance ; and the degraded shoal-ridge of 
the old isthmus may in like manner be perceived by the shallowness 
of the soundings, noted in like manner. 
The first evidences of the former connection of our island with the 
continent of Europe were suggested by an old author on British 
antiquities, one Richard Verstegan. In his fourth chapter Verstegan 
treats of the " Be of Albion," and " how it is shown to have beene 
continent, or firme land with Gallia, now named France, since the 
fioud of Noah." After discussing the various contentions as to the 
origin of the name Britaine, recapitulating the fabulous narrations 
about King Brut, and giving his opinions on the ancestry of Britons, 
he proceeds to the performance of his promise in showing Albion 
" anciently to have beene firme lande with Gallia." 
His notions of the fii'st conditions of land and sea are very pri- 
mitive, and highly tinctured with the ancient diluvial doctrines, and 
of course Verstegan goes back to the beginning, as all authors of his 
age are fond of doing so. Antiquaries of that day attempted to trace 
pedigrees back to Adam, and have been well characatured by Butler 
in his " Hudibras" for their pains ; and Verstegan, the incipient 
geologist, goes back to the fii'st di^vision of the waters from the dry 
land, and argues as the waters were gathered together in one place, 
" so consequently there were no islands before the flood of Noah." 
His observations, however, on the ancient connection of the lands 
on either side of the Channel are acute and perspicuous. 
" That our He of Albion hath bin continent with Gallia," says he, 
" hath beene the opinion of divers, as of Antonius Volscus, Domi- 
nicus Marius Niger, Servius Honoratus, the French poet Bartas, our 
