CHAPTER XV. 

 OF OCEAN-WEEDS 



" Have hung 

 My dank and dripping weeds." Trans. HORACE. 



" The tide is full, the moon lies fair 

 Upon the Straits ; on the French Coast the light 

 Gleams, and is gone ; the Cliffs of England stand, 

 Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay." 



MATTHEW ARNOLD. 



CCATTERED through the vast Chalk-beds 

 of Great Britain and the Continent are 

 thousands of layers of FLINT, such layers as 

 any of us may have seen intersecting the 

 smooth white face of Chalk Cliffs. And as with 

 Chalk, so with Flint we at once find ourselves 

 upon the track of Life. 



Not indeed always of animal life. Sometimes 

 vegetable life takes its place. Though the 

 highest Vegetables stand on a lower level than 

 the lowest Animals, they too have Life, and 

 thereby they are entirely apart from the whole 

 world of inanimate Nature. 



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