his region from north-east to north-west, it
runs from Versailles to seventy-five miles beyond Rouen. At Maromme,
we lose it. But I, Simon, have found it again in the quarries above
Longueville and also not far from Dieppe. And lastly I have found it
. . . where do you think? In England, at Eastbourne, between Hastings
and Newhaven! Same composition, same disposition. There was no
question of a mistake. It ran from France to England! It ran under the
Channel. . . . Ah, how I have studied it, my fault, Old Sandstone's
fault, as I used to call it! How I have sounded it, deciphered its
meanings, questioned it, analysed it! And then, suddenly in 1912, some
seismic shocks affected the table-lands of the Seine-Inferieure and
the Somme and acted in an abnormal manner as I was able to prove--on
the tides! Shocks in Normandy! In the Somme! Right out at sea! Do you
grasp the strangeness of such a phenomenon and how, on the other hand,
it acquired a significant value from the very fact that it took place
along a fault? Might we not suppose that there were stresses along
this fault, that captive forces were seeking to escape through the
earth's crust and attacking the points of least resistance, which
happened to lie precisely along the lines of the faults? . . . You may
call it an improbable theory. Perhaps so; but at any rate it seemed
worth verifying. And I did verify it. I made diving-experiments within
sight of the French coast. At my fourth descent, in the Ridin de
Dieppe, where the depth is only thirty feet, I discovered traces of an
eruption in the two blocks of a fault all of whose elements tallied
with those of the Anglo-Norman fault . . . That was all I wanted to
know. There was nothing more to do but wait . . . a century or two
. . . or else a few hours. . . . Meanwhile it was patent to me that
sooner or later the fragile obstacle opposed to the internal energies
would break down and the great upheaval would come to pass. It has
come to pass."

Simon listened with growing interest. Old Sandstone illustrated his
lecture with diagrams drawn with broad strokes of the pen and smeared
with blots which his sleeve or fingers generously spread all over the
paper. Drops of sweat also played their part, falling from his
forehead, for Old Sandstone was always given to perspiring copiously.

He repeated:

"It has come to pass, with a whole train of precursory or concomitant
phenomena: submarine eruptions, whirlpools, boats and s