About the Long Past 



stances, lying one upon another, or mixed con- 

 fusedly together. When men work their way 

 downwards, in well-sinking or in mine-sinking, 

 they come across a great variety of layers, each 

 unlike the rest. 



Here perhaps is a stratum of stiff clay, and 

 there is a deposit of sandstone. Here hard 

 granite bars the path, and there an easy road 

 is found through crumbling chalk. Here a great 

 thickness of pebbles appears, bound together into 

 a rock-like conglomerate ; and there seams of 

 coal alternate with limestone. 



Each whispers a tale of Earth's past history ; 

 and not the same tale. They were not all made 

 in the same workshop, or after the same mode. 

 Each has its own separate biography. 



And the various layers do not lie flat and 

 even, one upon another. Once upon a time 

 they may so have lain, but since those days 

 they have been moved and shoved about, tilted 

 and lowered, heaved up and dragged down, so 

 that some of the upper layers have in places 

 disappeared below the pile, and in other places 

 some of the undermost layers have been pushed 

 to the top. It is by studying the latter, where 

 they happen to crop up within reach, that the 

 geologist can learn a little about deeper portions 

 i 113 



