4 ABOUT VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES. 



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constantly hammered by the waves and constantly 

 crumbling : the beach itself made of the flints outstand- 

 ing after the softer chalk has been ground down and 

 washed away ; themselves grinding one another under 

 the same ceaseless discipline ; first rounded into pebbles, 

 then worn into sand, and then carried out farther and 

 farther down the slope, to be replaced by fresh ones 

 from the same source. 



(4.) Well: the same thing is going on ^zwj7^'//^/r, r^?/;/^ 

 ez't'ry coast of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Foot 

 by foot or inch by inch, month by month or century by 

 century, down everything must go. Time is as nothing 

 in geology. And what the sea is doing the rivers are 

 helping it to do. Look at the sand-banks at the mouth 

 of the Thames. What are they but the materials of our 

 island carried out to sea by the stream? The Ganges 

 carries av/ay from the soil of India, and delivers into 

 the sea, twice as much solid substance weekly as is con- 

 tained in the great pyramid of Egypt. The Iravvaddy 

 sweeps off from Burmah 62 cubic feet of earth in every 

 second of time on an average, and there are 86,400 sec- 

 onds in every day, and 365 days in every year; and so on 

 for the other rivers. What has become of all that great 

 bed of chalk which once covered all the weald of Kent, 

 and formed a continuous mass from Ramsgate and Dover 

 to Beechy Head, running inland to Madamscourt Hill and 

 Seven Oaks % All clean gone, and swept out into the 

 bosom of the Atlantic, and there forming other chalk- 

 beds. Now, geology assures us, on tlie most conclusive 

 and undeniable evidence, that all our present land, all 



