346 
THE TERTIARY EPOCH. 
of repose of long duration. In the tertiary era, on 
the contrary, it is manifest that the disturbing 
forces were in frequent and violent action, and 
})roduced elevations and subsidences, and enormous 
dislocations and fissures, throughout the whole 
mass of the strata of the south-east of England. 
In the anticlinal axis of the Forest ridge, from 
whence the strata diverge to the south-east in 
Sussex and the north-west in Kent, we have 
evidence of a force having acted from beneath, in 
a direction from east to west, by which the Wealden 
beds have been elevated above the chalk form- 
ation, and the cretaceous strata broken up, and 
swept away from the whole central area of Kent 
and Sussex. On these phenomena Dr. Fitton 
observes that, “ whether the fractures and up- 
heavings took place entirely beneath the sea, or 
after the strata were in part or wholly raised above 
its surface, at once or at distant epochs, we have 
no facts to enable us to decide ; it is, indeed, not 
impossible that the very act of rending the strata 
may itself have effected their protrusion from 
beneath the waves.”* If, however, we consider 
that the chalk was upwards of 1200 feet in thick- 
ness, and extended over the whole southern de- 
nudation, it seems probable that elevation and 
destruction were going on simultaneously. So 
soon as the first ridge of chalk on the anticlinal 
line protruded above the surface of the ocean, it 
would become exposed to the action of the waves ; 
and as elevation proceeded, degradation would 
* (icology of Hastings, p. 83 . 
