186 
THE AGE OF THE WYE. 
red have always a perfectly rounded contour, excepting only 
where this bed crops out. The rounded cod tour of the hill side 
is then broken by a SO feet cliff, as is shown on the section of 
Copped Wood Hill. It is there seen that the slope of the hill 
above the great bed does not run in a fair line with that below. 
In fact, all the appearances here point to a period, antecedent 
to the establishment of the ’River Wye, when the whole of these 
hills were submerged under a sea, having a strong current from 
the north-west by north, during which this great bed resisted 
the action of the waters in a far greater degree than the weaker 
and softer beds lying above and below it. The consequence 
was, that these softer beds were mined away from above and 
below until great masses, many as big as a small cottage, 
fell away and rolled down the steep hill side. Some of those 
large blocks rolled to the bottom of the hill, and one now 
lies in the present river channel, while many others have 
stuck, in fantastic positions, part of the way down the steep 
slope, and appear now ready to fall over on the slightest 
provocation. The position of these last forms a clear proof 
that they fell through tvate7\ which let them down easy, for, 
if they had fallen from that height through ai7\ they could not 
possibly have stopped where we now find them, but would 
have acquired such a velocity in their decent as would have 
carried them far on the level at the bottom. The water must, 
at that time, have been high enough to have covered the 
summit of the Buckstone Hill, already alluded to, for that 
hill shows to its very top the unmistakable signs of denudation. 
The accumulation of these blocks of stone which have thus 
fallen away, and now lie exposed below, represents many feet 
of the bed, and point to a very lengthened period during 
which this part of the couDtry was submerged, and the com- 
paratively softer arid less durable beds above and below the 
great bed were subjected to the very slow action of being worn 
