"Perhaps the Anglo-Norman fault had ramifications in the affected areas?"
"I repeat, I saw only a narrow belt of land."
"That is to say, you saw and crossed only the highest crests of the upheaved region, crests forming a ridge. But this region was thrown up altogether; and you must have noticed that the waves, instead of subsiding, were rolling over miles of beach."
"That is so. Nevertheless the sea was there and is there no longer."
"It is there no longer because it has receded. Phenomena of this extent produce reactions beyond their immediate field of activity and give rise to other phenomena, which in turn react upon the first. And, if this dislocation of the bottom of the Channel has raised one part, it may very well, in some other submarine part, have provoked subsidences and ruptures by which the sea has escaped through the crust. Observe that a reduction of level of six to nine feet was enough to turn those miles of barely covered beach into permanent dry land."
"A supposition, my dear professor."
"Nothing of the sort!" cried Old Sandstone, striking the table with his fists. "Nothing of the sort! I have positive evidence of this also; and I shall publish all my proofs at a suitable moment, which will not be long delayed."
He drew from his pocket the famous locked wallet, whose grease-stained morocco had caught Simon's eye at Newhaven, and declared:
"The truth will emerge from this, my lad, from this wallet in which my notes have been accumulating, four hundred and fifteen notes which must needs serve for reference. For, now that the phenomena has come to pass and all its mysterious causes have been wiped out by the upheaval, people will never know anything except what I have observed by personal experiments. They will put forward theories, draw inferences, form conclusions. But they will not see. Now I . . . have seen."
Simon, who was only half listening, interrupted: