GEOLOGICAL POSITIONS. 79 



as our German friends have most likely some less extravagant food for 

 them than egg and meat, which are -alone found to answer the purpose 

 here. The great difficulty is that the food must be moist, as they 

 seldom drink ; one of mine lived, I should think, for a month without 

 water, but then the food was very moist. Perhaps some of your corre- 

 spondents can suggest an efficient substitute, as I have not yet succeeded 

 in discovering one. I find I have so filled my paper that I have no 

 room for an interesting anecdote of the hawfinch, which I had intended 

 to communicate ; if, however, the above is deemed worthy of a place 

 in your Magazine, I will not fail to forward it shortly*. 

 Gravesend, Jan. 8th, 1834. 



IN DIRECT PROOF OF AN IMPORTANT PART OF SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY. 

 FIRST LINE OF ARGUMENT. 



1. The chalk is a marine formation, and consequently was deposited 

 as a sediment, in the bed of the sea^. 



2. As the chalk now forms an extensive member of the secondary 

 strata of our dry lands, there must have been a time when it first 

 became dry land. 



* In Germany, they feed their nightingales, from May till September, almost 

 wholly on ants' eggs, which are regularly sold for this purpose, and are also dried 

 for winter food ; but in winter the chief food is German paste. Live meal worms 

 are also given them, to the number of twelve a day, during their time of singing. 

 I myself purchased, at Cologne, about ten thousand for a sovereign, and have 

 now, I should think, a million or more. Full information on all these points is 

 given in Dr. Bechstein's work on Tame Birds, now in the press. See also Field 

 Naturalist, vol. i. page 224. ED. 



t This singular paper has been sent to me, in print, without any name, or 

 printer's imprint. ED. 



| The chalk formation is here selected for the establishment of the following 

 positions, from its very marked features, and from the facts on which they are 

 founded having been first remarked on the chalk coasts of France and England. 

 But the argument applies with equal force to all other secondary formations, acted 

 upon by the erosion of the sea. 



