Chalk Formation of Denmark. 65 



inclosed on both sides by high and almost perpendicular walls 

 of the chalk-like rock, the slope inclining under such an angle 

 as to make it difficult to ascend. On ascending, I observed a 

 bed of smoke-gray clay, dipping on the left hand side under 

 this chalk, with an angle of 35° to 70°. In some places it is 

 immediately covered by the chalk ; in others a bed of variable 

 thickness is interposed, consisting of round fragments of chalk 

 and quartzy sand, cemented together by carbonate of limeinto a 

 half friable paste. In other places the smoke-gray clay passes 

 into the chalk in the form of small veins, and thus proves 

 that they nearly originated at the same time. The clay is 

 slaty, and its stratification is parallel with the plane of junction 

 between the chalk and clay. This bed of bluish-gray clay is be- 

 tween 6 and 8 feet thick; below it lies a bed of yellow sandy clay 

 and yellow sand, thicker than the former. There appear first 

 stripes of yellow sand in the bluish-gray clay, parallel with the 

 beds of it ; when afterwards the sand becomes predominant, the 

 bluish clay forms similar and parallel stripes in it, thus prov- 

 ing the connection between all these sandy and clay beds with 

 the superposed chalk-like rock. The yellow sand and loam 

 are full of large masses of granite, gneiss, hornblende rock, gra- 

 nular sandstone ; and I have by no means been able to find 

 any difference between this sand and loam and that which, 

 through a great part of Denmark, forms the upper surface, 

 for both consist of a yellow iron-shot sandy clay, and both con- 

 tain large masses of rolled granular primitive and secondary 

 mountains. 



On the other side of the recess, the grayish-blue loam dips 

 under a very small angle under the chalk. Thus a superpo- 

 sition is very evident in this place. It might be objected that 

 rain-water had deposited the gray clay and sand, after having 

 excavated the chalk. But the veins of gray clay passing into 

 the chalk, the extreme regularity of the depositions of differ- 

 ent coloured sand and clay, their parallelism with the super- 

 posed chalk, leave no doubt that it could not be a deposition 

 posterior to the chalk. The rain-water carried away the softer 

 clay and sand, and thus formed the recess in which the newer 

 depositions, carried down by the rain-water, instantly are recog- 

 nized by their utter want of regularity. On many other places 



VOL. IX. NO I. JULY 1828. E 



