How Chalk is Made 



For all this the present tense is as true as the 

 past tense. 



Those white cliffs along the coast were formed 

 ages ago. But the ocean is working still, build- 

 ing still, piling grains of sand together still, 

 heaping specks of mud together still, and laying 

 shells, shells, shells, together still, in amounts 

 beyond all reckoning. 



Chalk-building went on in ages past ; it goes 

 on now ; and doubtless it will go on in centuries 

 to come. 



Not only beyond reckoning, but beyond im- 

 agination, are the enormous multitudes of these 

 creatures, which live and die in the ocean, form- 

 ing their shells, and adding their skeletons to the 

 ever-growing pile below. 



Over a large part of the Atlantic bed, as over 

 other Ocean-beds too, lies a thick ooze. When 

 this was first brought to the surface, in soundings 

 that were made before the laying of the earliest 

 Atlantic cable, it was supposed to mean a thin 

 deposit of no particular importance. 



Then a deep-sea dredge, plunged into the 

 ooze, carried away half- a -ton of it, and men 

 began to realise what its presence might mean. 

 By a long succession of soundings, its true 

 nature became slowly manifest. 



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