On the Valley of the English Channel

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Abstract
T he valley of the English Channel presents two points of geological interest which may be considered as new—the one relating to the nature of its bed, as a guide to the conditions of origin of our older marine formations; the other to its age as an area of depression. For the former purpose the area may appear to be too limited; the extent of surface, however, from the Straits of Dover to the outward line of soundings, is more than equal to the whole of the South of England from the Land's End to the Wash, an area which comprises the whole series of English geological formations. Having had frequent opportunities of cruising about this Channel, I have been enabled, at one time or another, to visit nearly every portion of its shores on either side, and to examine its bed with the dredge and sounding-lead. The English Channel occupies a valley bounded by two parallel systems of elevation. The line of 49° 58', commencing from the east coast of France, near Dieppe, and which passes a little south of the Lizard Point, is as long a straight line as can be drawn within it. A physical area may have a general form and outline, which may not at all represent the direction of the forces by which it has been produced. The movements by which relief has been given to portions of the earth's crust are seldom continuously linear; the lines themselves, taken separately, are constantly seen to diminish

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