EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



113 



FLINTS OF THE UPPER CHALK: FORMATION. 



EvEETBODT knows tlie- appearance of flint, 

 but few persons are acquainted with, its pre- 

 sumed origin. If we go to the sea-side re- 

 sorts of tlie Kentish and South-Eastern coast, 

 we find abundant flints ; if we walk on the 

 beach, there are flints innumerable, generally 

 small and rounded, beneath our fatigued 

 feet ; if we walk along the roads, there are 

 flints flanking us on each side in the walls. 

 Gathered from the pebbly beach, they are 

 selected and split by a sharp blow, and then 

 built up in mortar, with their split facets 

 outwards, so as to form an enduring, though 

 rather rough, piece of walling. Nothing 

 could present a better exhibition of the cha- 

 racter and contents of chalk-flints than such 

 a wall. If a geologist had been employed to 

 display them in the fittest manner, he could 

 not have succeeded better than the rough 

 wall-builder. 



Suppose, however, that we enter a garden 

 of one of the sea-side houses, and hope to 

 find refreshment in shrubs and flowers ; al- 

 though the place may by courtesy be called 

 a garden, it is after all a mere repetition of 

 flinty specimens. There are more flints than 

 flowers, more chalk fragments than crocuses, 

 and more pebbles than peonies. In truth, flint, 

 either rough or round, either monstrously 

 large or minutely sharp, meets xis in all di- 

 rections. There are even flint-faced houses 

 as well as walls ; there are "flints beneath our 

 feet, on either hand, and above our head. 

 Where did all these flints come from ? That 

 is a natural inquiry, and we shall endeavour 

 briefly to answer it. 



The Upper Chalk Formation is the original 

 seat and source of all these masses and these 

 rounded pebbles. Walking along the coast 

 under the high-rising chalk cliffs, we see 

 layers of flint lying in the chalk itself, and 



forming long-continued beds or seams, com- 

 monly taking the same course, the same 

 bendings and wavings, as the chalk itself. 

 These beds of flint may be seen at Margate, 

 running all round by the North Foreland, 

 and continuing to Dover. At Brighton, when 

 we have passed Kemp Town and approach 

 Eottingdean, two layers of flint become visible 

 and strongly marked ; and at Eottingdean 

 itself may be seen several layers of flat 

 flint spreading out like hard tiles through 

 the chalk. In the Isle of Wight similar 

 siliceous seams are visible, and at Scratchel's 

 Bay, near the Needles, very remarkable ob- 

 lique seams of flint are observable in lofty 

 chalk cliffs. These were not deposited ob- 

 liquely, but must have been originally hori- 

 zontal. The fair inference, from their present 

 oblique position, is, that they, together with 

 the cliffs, have experienced an upheaval at one 

 end of the range of cliffs in primeval periods, 

 when the strata of chalk first formed hori- 

 zontally were subject to great disturbance 

 from the action of internal forces. A curious 

 sign of the great force employed is the shat- 

 tered condition of many of the flints, though 

 still imbedded in the solid rock. The dip of 

 the inclined strata is in general from 70" to 

 80' ; but many of the teds, through a con- 

 siderable distance, are quite vertical, and 

 present the remarkable appearance of chalk 

 and flints standing as it were head down- 

 wards, or much as if this page should be 

 turned half round, and the lines of print 

 stand upon their ends. 



It is a perplexing question which we are 

 prompted to put as we look up at vast accu- 

 mulations of flint, so regular in their position, 

 so irregular in their particular conflguration: 

 How came these hard bodies — bodies so hard 

 that their name is a synonyme for unim- 



