folds or arches having been cut away by geological agencies, to which
I shall refer by-and-by. What were at one time horizontal strata have
been crumpled up into great folds, the folds being squeezed tightly
together, and their upper portions planed away before the overlying red
sandy beds were laid down. The accompanying diagram (Fig. 2) may serve
to make all this clearer. Let A A represent the present surface of the
ground, and B B a depth of say fifty feet or a hundred feet from the
surface. The continuous lines between A and B represent the greywacké
beds as we now see them in section; the dotted lines above A A indicate
the former extension of the strata, and the dotted lines below B B
their continuation below that datum line. Hence it is obvious that in
a succession of vertical or highly inclined beds, we may have the same
strata repeated many times, the same beds coming again and again to the
surface. Thus the stratum at S is evidently the same bed as that at W,
X, Y, and Z.
[Illustration: Fig 2.]
Such great foldings or redoublings of strata are most probably
originated during subsidence of a portion of the earth's crust. While
the ground is slowly sinking down, the strata underneath are perforce
compelled to occupy less space laterally, and this they can only do by
yielding amongst themselves. All folding or contortion on the large
scale--that, namely, which has affected areas of strata extending
over whole countries--seems to have taken place under great pressure;
in other words, to have been produced at considerable depths from
the earth's surface. We can conceive, therefore, of a wide tract of
land sinking down for hundreds of feet, and producing at the surface
comparatively little change. But a depression of a few hundred feet
at the surface implies a considerably greater depression at a depth
of several thousand feet from the surface, and it is at great depths,
therefore, that the most violent folding must take place. Consequently
considerable contortion, and much folding, and lateral crushing
and reduplication of strata may occur, and yet no trace of this be
observable at the surface, save only a gentle depression. For example,
in Greenland, a movement of subsidence has been going on for many
years--the land has been slowly sinking down. The rocks at the surface
are of course quite undisturbed by this widely-extended movement, but
the strata at great depths may be undergoing much compression and
contortion. It follows from such considerations, that if we now get
highly contorted strata covering wide areas at the surface, we suspect
that very considerable _denudation_ has taken place. That is to say,
large masses of rock have been removed by the geological agents of
change, so as to expose the once deeply-buried tops of the arched or
curved and folded strata. We may therefore infer from a study of the
phenomena in the Jed at Allars Mill, first, that the red sandy beds are
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