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quantities, no doubt, but still being dissolved, and afterwards re- 

 deposited around the nodules. He was heretical enough to say it was 

 possible— nay, that he believed it was a fact, though he- could not 

 prove it — that many of the nodules they saw were annually getting 

 larger. He thought there was no one who had ever studied the 

 fissures filled with tabular flint but must come to the conclusion that 

 they were of much more recent date than the nodular flints. Fissures 

 seemed to have been formed by the subsidence of the chalk, and these 

 fissures seemed to have been apparently filled up by that hard material 

 called flint. The study of the tabular flints in the neighbourhood 

 would be a source of great delight, and the student would be also 

 enabled to gather facts which might tend to throw some light on the 

 mystery enshrouding their formation, and upon the question as to 

 whether they were still forming. This was a point about which he 

 wished to interest the members of the Natural History Society. Were 

 any facts now to be obtained to tell them whether or not flint is still 

 forming in the chalk .'' He believed it was, and although he was not 

 prepared to prove it, yet he hoped that they might possibly be ablg to 

 do so. 



Mr. J. E. Haseuvood : You could not suggest any test ? That 

 is the difficult)-, I suppose ? 



Mr. WlLLETT said he thought the tests must be such as would 

 commend themselves to each individual mind. He had, in his own 

 mind, suggested that if any one could get into some subterranean 

 place, such as the Brighton Waterworks, and if one could extract a 

 flint, and put a gold or silver thread round it, replace it, and then 

 examine it after a certain time, they might ascertain if there were any 

 change. There might, however, be methods in the laboratory, for 

 reaching the same end, by subjecting a block of chalk (which had been 

 previously weighed) to the percolation of water, or of different kinds 

 of water, to see if there were any change produced in that way. He 

 would suggest, too, that, perhaps, if certain portions of chalk con- 

 taining portions of tabular flint, — which in some cases were to be 

 found as thin as note paper, — could be placed in the laboratory', and 

 subjected to the percolation of water, with, perhaps, the addition of 

 some little weak galvanic or magnetic force, some discovery might be 

 made. He wished it to be understood that he was quite ignorant ; it 

 was merely a problem, in the solution of which everyone had the same 



