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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Mesozoic times, to be determined and understood only through 
the application of modern laws, or as read by recent physical 
geography, which applied to the past enables us to read with 
tolerable accuracy, even at great depths, the configuration and 
condition of those areas once at or near the surface, but now 
deeply hidden, and revealed again in part through the application 
of the boring-tool in our search either for water or for mineral 
wealth. 
As far back as 1856, Mr. Godwin- Austen almost asked for a 
practical solution of his views. “ What is now,” he says, “ above 
measure needed is, that we should obtain one single 'point of 
verification as to the depth at which any part of the Palaeozoic 
group occurs beneath our south-east area. The state of the 
question is such, that from this one single point, once ascertained, 
the rest of the investigation might be conducted, for practical 
purposes, with perfect certainty, and it is therefore of import- 
ance that the question and its possible results should not be lost 
sight of by all those who may be promoting deep sinkings at 
any places over the area which has been here indicated.” 
Again, Mr. Prestwich, in 1872, in his admirable article “ On 
the probable existence of coal measures in the south-east of 
England,” * speaks regrettingly of the fact that up to that time, 
“ in this country, the newer strata overlying the Palaeozoic range 
have been sunk into without result in the Wealden at Hastings 
to a depth of 486 feet; at Earlswood, near Reigate, in the same 
strata, to about 900 feet ; through the chalk at Chichester to 
945 feet ; and at Southampton through tertiary strata and chalk to 
a depth of 1,317 feet. Unfortunately, all these works fall short of 
the mark which geologists wish to attain.” 
In continuation Mr. Prestwich remarks 4 that in an indus- 
trial point of view no experiments could be more important 
than such as would serve to determine the position of this great 
underground range of older rocks, connecting the Ardennes 
and the Mendips. We have ascertained that it lies at no great 
depth beneath the overlying newer strata, and if the strike of 
the line of disturbance were in a straight line we should have 
no difficulty in determining its course.’ Local deflection may 
have affected its east and west bearings through its range of 
800 miles ; and, “ whilst Mr. Godwin- Austen would place the 
supposed coal trough in the Valley of the Thames, or under the 
North Downs,” Mr. Prestwich would prefer placing it further 
north, in Essex or Hertfordshire ; and whilst also Mr. Austen 
believed it to be continuous or extended, Mr. Prestwich favoured 
the idea that it is probably broken up into basins. “ If, however,” 
he says, 46 the axis of the Ardennes consisted of an anticlinal line, 
* Popular Science Review, vol. xi. p. 241. 1872. 
