File:The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London (12711575645).jpg

486 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. .May 2,
In order to present these phsenomena in a more concise form, a
diagram (fig. 6) is annexed, by which it will be observed that the
great majority of the platforms have a northerly bearing. The out-
Fig. 6. — Diagram of the Bear-
ings of the Marlstone Plat-
forms.
Fig. 7. — Diagram of the Direc-
tions and Numerical Propor-
tion of the Faults.
Vi/3^
.2E
line of the former coast has of course, in some measure, modified
these directions ; occasionally, perhaps, counteracting the tendency
of the platforms to project northwards, especially along the Eastern
flank. It is sufficiently evident, however, that there has been a
greater tendency to the formation of platforms pointing northward
and westward, than to their production in other directions. Taking
this evidence in conjunction with the facts, that where a barrier
occurs the strata immediately south of it have been less denuded
than where there is none, and that along the escarpment the Oolitic
as well as Marlstone headlands all point more or less towards the
north, the evidence appears conclusive that the ancient sea has acted
vdth greater energy from that direction ; and when it is recollected
that at the period in question it extended from the Bristol Channel
to the estuaries of the Mersey and Dee*, the swell of an ancient
Atlantic might have been supposed to have acted with greatest effect
against the Cotteswold country from the south-west, had it not been
surpassed by a more powerful aqueous agency from an opposite
direction ; nor does it clearly appear why the action in the one case
should be so much greater than in the other, unless we suppose the
greater prevalence and force of northerly winds at that period. The
supposition also gains strength by analogy with the present ; for
north and west winds are those which now blow strongest over the
districts surrounding the Cotteswold Hills.
Faults. — The lines of dislocation may be arranged under two
systems ; the first, those which point north and south ; the second,
those the directions of which are east and west. Of the second,

• Sir R. I. Murchison was the first to point out that the sea extended from the
  

Cotteswolds on the east, to May Hill and the Malverns on the west ; turning