ix.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 167 



savages, such as the Esquimaux are now ; that, in the country 

 which is now France, they hunted the reindeer, and were 

 familiar with the ways of the mammoth and the bison. The 

 physical geography of France was in those days different from 

 what it is now the river Somme, for instance, having cut its 

 bed a hundred feet deeper between that time and this ; and, it 

 is probable, that the climate was more like that of Canada or 

 Siberia, than that of Western Europe. 



The existence of these people is forgotten even in the tradi 

 tions of the oldest historical nations. The name and fame of 

 them had utterly vanished until a few years back; and the 

 amount of physical change which has been effected since their 

 day, renders it more than probable that, venerable as are some 

 of the historical nations, the workers of the chipped flints of 

 Hoxne or of Amiens are to them, as they are to us, in point 

 of antiquity. 



But, if we assign to these hoar relics of long-vanished gene 

 rations of men the greatest age that can possibly be claimed for 

 them, they are not older than the drift, or boulder clay, which, 

 in comparison with the chalk, is but a very juvenile deposit. 

 You need go no further than your own sea- board for evidence of 

 this fact. At one of the most charming spots on the coast of 

 Norfolk, Cromer, you will see the boulder clay forming a vast 

 mass, which lies upon the chalk, and must consequently have 

 come into existence after it. Huge boulders of chalk are, in 

 fact, included in the clay, and have evidently been brought to 

 the position they now occupy, by the same agency as that which 

 has planted blocks of syenite from Norway side by side with 

 them. 



The chalk, then, is certainly older than the boulder clay. If 

 you ask how much, I will again take you no further than the 

 same spot upon your own coasts for evidence. I have spoken of 

 the boulder clay and drift as resting upon the chalk. That is 

 not strictly true. Interposed between the chalk and the drift is 

 a comparatively insignificant layer, containing vegetable matter. 

 But that layer tells a wonderful history. It is full of stumps of 



