150 TOWN GEOLOGY. [vi. 



mountains were ground down, the Silurian strata, 

 being uppermost, would be ground down first, and 

 would go to make the lower strata of the great New 

 Red Sandstone Lowland ; and that being sandy, they 

 would make the sandstones ? But wherever they were 

 ground through, the Lower Cambrian slates would be 

 laid bare ; and their remains, being washed away by 

 the sea the last, would be washed on to the top of the 

 remains of the Silurians ; and so (as in most cases) the 

 remains of the older rock, when redeposited by water, 

 would lie on the remains of the younger rock. And 

 do they not see that (if what I just said is true) these 

 slates would grind up into red marl, such as is seen 

 over the west and south of Cheshire and Staffordshire 

 and far away into Nottinghamshire ? The red marl 

 must almost certainly have been black slate some- 

 where, somewhen. Why should it not have been such 

 in Snowdon ? And why should not the slates in the 

 roof be the remnants of the very beds which are now 

 the marl in the fields ? 



And thus I end my story of the slates in the roof, 

 and these papers on Town Geology. I do so, well 

 knowing how imperfect they are : though not, I 

 believe, inaccurate. They are, after all, merely sug- 

 gestive of the great amount that there is to be learnt 

 about the face of the earth and how it got made, even 

 by the townsman, who can escape into the country and 

 exchange the world of man for the world of God, only, 

 perhaps, on Sundays if, alas ! even then or only 

 once a year by a trip in a steamer or an excursion 

 train. Little, indeed, can he learn of the planet on 

 which he lives. Little in that direction is given to 

 him, and of him little shall be required. But to him, 



