57 
THE (HUGEST OF OUR ENGLISH SCENERY. 
By HORACE B. WOODWARD, F.G.S., 
GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OP ENGLAND AND WALES. 
T HOSE, albeit not geologists, who contemplate our English 
scenery, and by many journeys have studied its varied 
forms, may derive much additional pleasure from knowing how 
these forms originated, and why in one place there is a hill and 
in another a valley. They may not care to examine into every 
detail upon which a knowledge of the causes of this variation is 
founded; that would be a minute and perhaps tedious subject: 
but it will prove interesting to all to know in a general way 
how the leading features of our country have been formed. 
The subject is intimately connected with the principles of 
geology, and in this respect, since the days of Hutton and Play- 
fair, it has been largely treated of and discussed by our leading 
geologists. 
Our hills and dales are mainly due to what is termed Denu- 
dation, or the laying bare of different rocks by the gradual 
wearing away of those previously above them. The general 
structure and arrangement of the different rocks in England is 
such that some were disturbed, upheaved, and denuded before 
others were deposited upon them, and therefore the forms of 
scenery are partly due to disturbance or elevation, though 
mainly to denudation. 
In order to comprehend the forms of denudation that have 
taken place, we have only to regard what is taking place now ; 
the work is carried on by rain, rivers, and the sea — water is the 
great agent — while in former times ice, in the shape of gla- 
ciers, had considerable influence in our country in wearing away 
the hills and in shaping the valleys. 
The effects of the sea are patent to all, in the gradual ruin of 
our cliffs and waste of our coast line. The effects of rivers are 
to be estimated best by the amount of solid matter which they 
bring down with them ; while the action of rain is partly com- 
bined with that of rivers, and is partly of a chemical nature ; 
the carbonic and other acids which it imbibes in its course 
through the atmosphere and the soil assisting largely to form 
