138
THE QUESTION OF WORKABLE
ferous period, having a marginal relation to the very ancient region
of elevation occupied by the Palaeozoic strata of the Welsh High-
lands. There is no evidence to show that these coal measures ever
extended into the region of East Anglia.
Turn we now to the continent of Europe. There we find the
great axis of elevation of the Ardennes running through Belgium,
and the Lower Rhine country. On the north flank of this is the
connected series of coal measures worked all along the country by
Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Valenciennes, and
even as far west as Calais and Marquise in Picardy. This axis of
the Ardennes points to a continuation of it under the Weald, the
axis of which (cut through by the English Channel) begins in the
Boulonais, and is continued through Hastings, Crowborough, and
Horsham, beyond which we trace distinctly an axis of elevation
through Hind Head (near Guildford), Kingsclere, and Inkpen, in
the direction of the axis of the Mendip Hills. It is to the north of
this that the proved coal measures lie, as do also, in all probability,
those recently discovered at Dover, though in a sketch map attached
to a pamphlet recently issued by Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S.,
this axis is made to turn more to the north so as to pass under
London and leave the Dover coal measures to the south of it. The
Dover coal measures are in all likelihood a direct continuation of
those of North France and Belgium, and (according to the views of
some eminent geologists who have given special attention to this
question) are most likely to be found in their continuation further
west by trial borings along the line of country lying immediately
south of the great chalk escarpment of the North Downs. When
nearly twenty years ago highly-inclined Devonian indurated shales,
some of the cores of which I had opportunities at the time of exam-
ining, were brought up from a deep boring for water at the brewery
of Messrs. Meux and Co., at the corner of Tottenham Court Road
and New Oxford Street, the natural conclusion of geologists at the
time was that there was a Palaeozoic ridge running east and west
under London ; but further evidence obtained in more recent years
from deep borings at Cheshunt (Turnford) and Ware have shown
that this inference is no longer tenable. These have proved that for
twenty miles north of London, not only does the old Palaeozoic floor
rise as we proceed northwards to that distance, but we pass from the
Devonian strata proved at Tottenham Court Road and at Kentish
Town, into the still older strata of the Silurian, getting further down