Calne. 167 
carried away, and would also have been lost but for its accidental 
recovery by your Vicar. 
As to private sources of information, it does not appear to have 
been the habit of your predecessors to make and transmit notes of 
local history. Traditions and oldest inbabitants there have been, of 
course: but oldest inhabitants are perishable articles, like the rest 
of us: and when they disappear their traditional lore disappears 
with them. 
In sitting down to the task, an old remark, baabiisood both in 
Greek and Latin poetry, occurred to me; applicable, indeed, to 
many places, but particularly so to Calne. It is, that Time and 
the countless course of years bring to light whatever is buried under- 
ground, and hide underground all that has flourished and sparkled 
on the surface.’ By the aid of the modern science of geology. Time 
has Jaid open the structure and order of the various strata which 
form the crust of our globe, has disclosed a most wonderful history, 
_ and has laid upon our tables undeniable proofs of it. ‘ime, on the 
. other hand, has buried in oblivion, certainly not all, but by far the 
} greatest part of what has taken place upon the surface of the earth. 
: Though the geology of this neighbourhood is very interesting, to 
go into it at any length would not only take up too much of our 
evening, but in order to be appreciated, would require more previous 
acquaintance with the subject than can fairly be expected, so I will 
only refer to one feature of it that is, perhaps, the most striking. 
Many of you have, no doubt, read in our boaks of voyages the 
account of those wonderful coral banks that are found in the hotter 
parts of the world, long reefs and often whole islands constructed, 
under water, by the little coral insect, who builds till he comes to 
the surface and then gives over, leaving a perilous hidden danger 
for ships to strike upon. It may surprise some present to hear that 
in this part of Wiltshire, for the stone with which roads are mended 
and walls built, we are indebted to that little workman, the coral 
sect. In short, the whole country having been formed by deposits 
of sand or chalk, in enormous masses, one after another, at the 
} 
¥ 2“ Quicquid sib terra est, in apricum proferet wtas; Defodiet condetque 
- nitentia,” (Horace, Epist I., 6, 1. 24.) See also Sophocles, Ajax, I. 646. 
