| We have, however, recently learnt from the observations of Ramsay, in the van of excellent observers,
of Jukes, Geikie, Croll, and others, that subaerial degrada- tion
is a much more important agency than coast-action, or the power of the waves.
The whole surface of the land is exposed to the chemical action of the air and of the rain-water with its dissolved carbonic acid, and in colder countries to frost; the disintegrated matter is carried down even gentle slopes during heavy rain, and to a greater extent than might be supposed, especially in arid districts, by the wind; it is then transported by the streams and rivers, which when rapid deepen their channels, and triturate the fragments.
On a rainy day, even in a gently undulating country, we see the effects of subaerial degradation in the muddy rills which flow down each
slope.
Messrs. Ramsay and Whitaker have shown, and the observation is a most striking one, that the great lines of escarpment in the Wealden district and those ranging across England, which formerly were looked at by every one
as ancient sea-coasts, cannot have been thus formed, for each line is composed of one and the same formation, whilst our present
sea-cliffs are everywhere formed by the intersection of various formations.
This being the case, we are compelled to admit that the escarpments owe their origin in chief part to the rocks of which they are composed having resisted subaerial denudation better than the surrounding surface; this surface consequently has been gradually lowered, with the lines of harder rock left projecting.
Nothing impresses the mind with the vast duration of time, according to our ideas of time, more forcibly than the conviction thus gained that subaerial agencies,
which apparently have so little power, and which seem to work so slowly, have produced such
great results.
When thus impressed with the slow rate at which the land is worn away through subaerial and littoral action, it is good, in order to appreciate the past duration of time, to consider, on the one hand, the mass
of rock which has
been removed over many extensive areas, and on the other hand the thickness of our sedimentary formations.
I remember having been much struck when viewing volcanic islands, which have been worn by the waves and pared all round into perpendicular cliffs of one or two thousand feet in height; for the gentle slope of the lava-streams, due to their formerly liquid state, showed at a glance how far the hard, rocky beds had once extended into the open ocean.
The same story is told still more plainly by faults,—those great cracks along which the strata have been up-heaved
on one side, or thrown down on the other, to the height or depth of thousands of feet; for since the crust cracked, and it makes no great difference whether the upheaval was sudden, or, as most geologists now believe, was very
slow and effected by many starts, the surface of the land has been so completely planed down that no trace of these vast dislocations is externally visible.
The Craven fault, for instance, extends for upwards of 30 miles, and along this line the vertical displacement of the strata varies from 600 to 3000 feet.
Professor Ramsay has published an account of a downthrow in Anglesea of 2300 feet; and he informs me that he fully believes that there is one in Merionethshire of 12,000 feet; yet in these cases there is nothing on the surface of the land to show such prodigious movements; the pile of rocks on either side of the crack having been smoothly swept away.
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