60 THE DALES OF DERBYSHIRE. 
stone, while the other matter formed sandstone and other 
rocks. It would take too long to give all the evidence in 
this case, step by step. Suffice it to say, ‘“‘Ex nihilo nihil 
fit,’ so that the shells, encrinites, corals, foraminifera, etc., 
must have found the carbonate of lime in the water, 
where it existed, and in which they lived, and with it, 
though they had no part in its creation, they must have 
built up the timestone as we know it to-day. We have 
only to turn to what is taking place in many parts of the 
world at the present time, to see how the secretion of 
limestone from the water on a vast scale is being effected 
by the intervention of tiny organisms similar to those 
mentioned. Coral reefs and islands are abundant in all 
the warmer waters of the globe. In the Indian Ocean, 
between the coasts of Hindostan and Africa, within the 
thirteenth parallels of latitude at each side of the equator, 
coral is abundant. Some groups of coral islands in the 
Pacific are as much as 200 miles long. In many places 
the thickness of the rock formed is over 1,000 feet; and, I 
believe, borings have proved a much greater thickness. 
In the beginning we have an island in an ocean in which 
the temperature is suitable to the growth of organisms pro- 
ducing calcareous secretions, corals, molluscs, etc. The 
seeds, so to say, of these organisms are washed or brought 
in some way to the shores of the island, which thus 
gradually becomes fringed with the limestone secreted from 
the water. The island gradually sinks—of this we have 
distinct proof—and the limestone rock gradually takes its 
place. 
If we examine the corals, shells, etc., living upon, and 
building up these vast accumulations, and compare them 
with those found in the Derbyshire limestone, we find the 
general agreement in structure and appearance most marked. 
The sea lily of to-day, with its jointed stem and head, has 
likewise its exact counterpart in the strata now under our 
