as the chalk sea grew, tlie weight ot its deposits caused the 

 land all round to sink, and, as this sea, "at last, covered nearly 

 the whole of England and Wales, the district between Gains- 

 borough and Lincoln, with all the western land, was buried 

 far beneath its waves. 



Now the action of a sea is ahvays tliat of a leveller, 

 and as, in course of ages, the cretaceous ocean itself passed 

 away, the land beneath it, as it rose again to the surface, 

 presented a smooth plane of erosion, gradually sloping up to 

 the higher landa around, which had, during this epoch, remain- 

 ed dry ground. 



At this time,— a period when the Pyrenees were thrown 

 up,— England, Scotland, and Ireland were, probably, as Mr. Jukes 

 Browne tells us, bound together in one mass. Land lay far 



out into the Atlantic on the west, and land connected Scotland 

 with Greenland, through the Faroes and Iceland, on the north, 

 and with Scandinavia on the east. 



How far, and to what extent, the area between Gains- 

 borough and Lincoln was denuded, during this great erosion, we 

 shall never know; but, as it rose higher and higher above the 

 waves, the carving tools of nature were brought into play, and 

 rain, frost, and other forces of the atmosphere began 'their 

 ^^aseless work. 



Now rain may seen.i but a weak agent for formino- 

 hills, and scooping out valleys, but, with the help of frost and 

 the corroding forces of the atmosphere, without doubt it effects 

 the task. 



Both hill and valley have one common origin, they are 

 the remains of surfaces, once planed and levelled by the sea 

 (I am not here speaking of volcanic force), which, when raised 

 above the waves, were carved and cut into shape by the rain- 

 the harder parts, the most capable of resisting erosion, formino- 



