314 
EOCENE PERIOD. 
[Ch. XXII. 
which have been removed by denudation, that hill, instead of 
rising to the height of 800 feet, would be more than trebled 
in altitude *, and be about 2700 feet high. It would then 
tower far above the highest outlyers of tertiary strata which 
are scattered over our chalk, for Inkpen Hill, the greatest 
elevation of chalk in England, rises only 1011 feet above the 
level of the sea. 
Some geologists who have thought it necessary to suppose 
all the strata of the London and Hampshire basins to have 
been once continuous, have estimated the united thickness of 
the three marine Eocene groups before described^ as amounting 
to 1300 feet, and have been bold enough to imagine a mass of 
this height to have been once superimposed upon the chalk 
which formerly covered the axis of the Weald f. Hence they 
were led to infer that Crowborough Hill was once 4000 feet 
high, and was then cut down from 4000 to 800 feet by diluvial 
action. 
We, on the contrary, deem it wholly unnecessary to suppose 
any removal of rocks newer than the secondary from the cen- 
tral parts of the valley of the Weald ; and we suppose the 
waste of the older rocks to have been caused gradually during 
the emergence of the country. The small strips of land which 
were first protruded in an open sea above the level of the waves,, 
may have been entirely carried away, again and again, in the 
intervals between successive movements, until at last a great 
number of reefs and islands rising at once, afforded protection 
to each other against the attacks of the waves, and the lands 
began to increase. We do not conceive, therefore, that a 
mountain ridge first rose to the height of more than 2000 feet, 
and was then lowered to less than half that elevation ; but that 
a stratified mass, more than 2000 feet thick, was, by the con- 
tinual stripping off of the uppermost beds as they rose, 
diminished to a thickness of about 800 feet. 
It is not our intention, at present, to point out the applica- 
* Phil, Mag. and Annals, No. 26, New Series, p. 117. 
f Martin, ibid. 
