. The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London. A A. Miocene strata. B, C, D. Pre-Miocene mountains (Schwarzwald, Vosges,&c), bordering Miocene waters. E. Pre-Miocene Alps, bordering Mio-cene waters.(The arrow indicates the direction of the drainage in part of what is now theRhine valley.) the greater part of the high plain of Miocene strata was worn away;and the tabular uplands near Basel and Mainz now bordering themodern plain remain to attest the amount of denudation that thevalley has suffered by watery erosion. This hypothesis readily accords with the occurrence of stratified
. The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London. A A. Miocene strata. B, C, D. Pre-Miocene mountains (Schwarzwald, Vosges,&c), bordering Miocene waters. E. Pre-Miocene Alps, bordering Mio-cene waters.(The arrow indicates the direction of the drainage in part of what is now theRhine valley.) the greater part of the high plain of Miocene strata was worn away;and the tabular uplands near Basel and Mainz now bordering themodern plain remain to attest the amount of denudation that thevalley has suffered by watery erosion. This hypothesis readily accords with the occurrence of stratifiedbanks of gravel at various levels above those of the more modernriver-terraces which are common in the plain. If also much of theLoess be only river-mud of a comparatively ancient date, and per-haps partly of glacier origin, this view helps to account for its A. C. ItAMSAT OS THE PHYSICAL HISTORY. OF THE VALLEY OF THE RHINE. 89 being found at many different levels on the slopes that flank theRhine valley, far better than that of a hypothetical partial submer-gence of the country which converted a large part of the valley intoa kind of freshwater estuary. Thus the Jurassic hills between Her-holz and Ettenheim on the right bank are partly covered by theseold river-deposits to heights of about 200 feet above the river, whilelower down, as at Worms, the Loess rests on river-gravel close to thegreat plain; and at Eltville the Loess covered with vineyards descendsto the level of the Rhine. As the river by degrees lowered the levelof the plain, it left its finer detritus at these and many other levels. While this plain still retained its original high level, and theRhine, as already stated, flowed through the upland slopes formedof Devonian rocks now lying between Bingen and Konigswinter,it first began to form the gorge; and as this work of wateryerosion went on, the water, constantly
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidquarte, booksubjectgeology
