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habitations of animals which could live only in sea water; com- 
paratively free from remains of land animals and plants, few of 
which could bé carried out to deep water before they decayed and 
were dismembered. The very dust itself into which you crush a 
bit of chalk is a collection of fairy shells, microscopic, but often 
wondrously and richly ornamented with that lavishness of beauty 
so characteristic of Nature. 
These chalk deposits cover as I said a very large area ; they are 
found from Ireland all across to the east of Europe, and as far south 
as Spain. Not, however, in one continuous sheet, but in detached 
portions. Probably the area was not wholly water, but studded 
with islands and other masses of land, large and small, upon which 
of course no deposit could be formed. But in many cases masses 
once forming a continuous whole have been cut into, and subdivided 
by the agency of rain and rivers. 
The chalk just here is that known as- the Lower Chalk, which 
Professor Geikie in his recent book includes in what is called on 
the continent Cenomian. It is marked by the absence of those lines 
of flints so noticeable in the cliffs beyond Dover. At its base is the 
deposit called the Grey Chalk, now so well known through the 
newspapers in connection with the proposed tunnel. It is very 
compact, and much freer from joints and crevices than the White 
Chalk. Hence it is probably the formation through which the 
tunnel will be driven.- A tunnel there will undoubtedly be, some 
day, when England shall cease to be afraid of invasion, and when 
the principles that statesmen and scientific men profess that they 
profess about the brotherhood of nations, shall be principles to be 
acted upon and not mere opinions. 
The whole of the coast between this spot and Folkestone is a 
kind of undercliff produced partly by gradual crumbling under the 
influences of frost and rain, but still more rapidly through the 
action of the land streams working through at various depths where 
the upper portions rest on a less permeable mass. To this agency 
have been owing the many landslips, some of which have aftected 
_ the railway ; and those of us who were present on the two former 
occasions of our assembling here cannot fail to be struck with what 
has happened in this way since then. Notice that the sea, upon 
_ which people generally lay the blame, has had very little to do 
_ with the waste here; all it has done has been to clear away the 
rubbish which has fallen from the cliff. So that it has always 
seemed to me that a strong sea wall would not in itself do much to 
stay the waste; it rather wants an effectual system of deep drain- 
age, which would probably be difficult to carry out, and certainly 
very expensive. 
On the chalk rocks lying in the bed of the sea and over which 
