V. Marine Denudation illustrated by the Brimham Rocks

Extract

The claims of the sea as a denuding agent have been much disputed of late years; the meteoric and fluviatile theories of denudation have been revived; and the glacial theory has been extended, so as to encroach on what was once generally admitted to be the legitimate province of the sea. But, as a forgetfulness of, as well as too much reliance on, the power of the sea to modify, may become a fertile source of hasty and false generalization, it is well that the importance of waves, tides, and currents, as denuding causes, should be re-asserted, and attention directed afresh to the more striking monuments they have left behind them in regions removed from their present theatre of action. These monuments present an unmistakeable resemblance to the cliffs, buttresses, walled inlets, pillars, needles, &c., now in course of being formed by the sea; and in explaining them, the old principle of sound theorization —similar effects are referable to similar causes —is not to be set aside by overstraining the capabilities of any theory which will merely account for the phenomena.