CAVALRY CHALMERS. 



369 



it would be decreed, that a regiment of lancers was 

 more ornamental than useful. The history, how- 

 ever, of all ages shows, that the lance is the most 

 formidable and the most effective weapon that 

 cavalry can be armed with. It was the distinguish- 

 ing weapon of the days of chivalry; it was the 

 principal arm of that cavalry whom nothing but the 

 Swiss infantry could resist; and, in modern times, 

 it has been most successfully employed in the 

 French armies. The misapplication of the lance 

 in our service is a sufficient proof of how little it 

 is understood. That weapon is peculiarly adapted 

 for heavy cavalry, and in the hands of light dragoons, 

 upon light horses, is deprived of half its advan- 

 tages. If the useless carbine, with its weighty 

 appendages, was taken from our heavy cavalry, and 

 a twelve-foot lance substituted, those troops would 

 become, perhaps, the most formidable line cavalry 

 in Europe. Both the personnel and materiel of the 

 British cavalry qualify it in the highest degree for 

 this description of force. The size, strength, and 

 swiftness of the horse, the weight, steadiness, 

 and moral force of the man, are qualities which 

 should not be deprived of the means that would 

 render them most effective. 



Armour of any kind is highly objectionable for 

 any cavalry. It is strange that armour should have 

 been given to the British Life Guards immediately 

 after they had proved its inefficiency, after they, 

 unaided by such defences, had torn the laurels of 

 Waterloo from the cuirassiers of France. Armour 

 must be a decided impediment to the efficiency of 

 a dragoon on service. The enormous weight,- 

 the constant clearing required, the pain which its 

 inflexibility must cause under fatigue, are circum- 

 stances which alone qualify its advantages in action. 

 These advantages also have been much overrated ; 

 and perhaps it will one day be shown that the 

 British Life Guards are more to be feared when 

 their natural strength, weight, and activity are al- 

 lowed full freedom of action, than when such quali- 

 ties are constrained by the incumbrance of a cuirass. 

 King James I. observed, in praise of armour, that 

 it not only protected the wearer, but also prevent- 

 ed him from injuring any other person; and there 

 can be no doubt that, however invulnerable a 

 cuirass may render a cavalry soldier, his active pro- 

 perties are thereby much reduced. 



It is strange, that eager as we are to avail our- 

 selves of foreign fashions in our uniforms and equip- 

 ments, we so often miss the point of utility. The 

 hussar cap, for example, is, according to the real 

 Hungarian form, an useful thing; the long trian- 

 gular flap, which hangs down like a jelly-bng, con- 

 sists of a double slip of cloth, which will fold round 

 the soldier's face, and form a comfortable night- 

 cap ; but, in our service, one single slip is left to 

 flap and dangle about the man's head, no great or- 

 nament by day, and totally useless by night. The 

 Ini^iir pelisse also, in its original form, was intended 

 for a rational outside covering, but with us it is 

 a mere appendage to the soldier's neck, which, on 

 such occasions, seems but to perform the service of 

 a clothes-peg. The British cavalry are certainly 

 better provided both with personnel and materiel 

 than any cavalry in Europe, perhaps than any 

 cavalry in the world ; but they are deficient in 

 mobility, not in direct movement, for our horses 

 have, probably, greater speed than any foreign 

 cavalry, but in that facility of manoeuvre which 

 enables large masses of cavalry to appear suddenly 

 on that point in the field of battle where their as- 



VII. 



sistance is required. It is in this locomotive pro- 

 perty that the German cavalry so much excel us; 

 they are also better officered, more watchful, more 

 accustomed to act independently, and, therefore, 

 better adapted for those peculiar operations of 

 cavalry which come under the head of field service, 

 or outpost duty. The leading quality of an 

 English soldier, whether horse or foot, is resistance, 

 the second is direct attack, and the operations of a 

 skirmisher, or hussar, are entirely foreign to his 

 natural propensities. 



CHALK FORMATION. Chalk forms the 

 last of the series commonly ranked in the secondary 

 strata, and rests upon the greensand beds, which 

 consist of a loose silicious sand, mixed with green 

 earth and silicious concretions, hornstone, and flint. 

 Sometimes, however, chalk is found resting on the 

 bias, red marl or some of the older secondary rocks. 

 It extends over the south-eastern, and eastern coun- 

 ties of England, north of France, Germany, and 

 north of Europe. It occurs in the north of Ire- 

 land, and a slight trace of it has been discovered in 

 the north of Scotland. It is stratified, and varies 

 from a thousand to a few feet in depth. Chalk is 

 almost a pure carbonate of lime. It is in general 

 soft and friable ; although sometimes so hard as 

 to be used as a building stone. Portions of chalk 

 found in contact with the igneous rocks of the 

 Giants' Causeway in Ireland, have been so acted 

 on by heat, as to assume the form of marble. 

 Numerous flint nodules are found in chalk, and 

 these generally contain some organized substance, 

 as a shell animal, or piece of flustra, as their nucleus. 

 Their nodules are more numerous in the upper 

 than in the lower beds. The organic remains found 

 in chalk are numerous, and almost exclusively ma- 

 rine. The spatangus, and echinus, or sea urchin, 

 are very common. Among the chambered shells are 

 scaphites, hamites, turrilites, baculites ; ammon- 

 ites, belemnites, nautilites, zoophytes, spinges, and 

 bivalve shells are also numerous. Spiral univalves 

 are more rare. Marine fuci, and fossil wood, which 

 has evidently been much drifted, are not uncommon. 

 Chalk contains occasionally an admixture of mag- 

 nesia, which imparts to it a brown spotted appear- 

 ance. On the whole, the chalk beds appear to 

 have been formed at the bottom of an ocean, pro- 

 bably by the disintegration of calcareous rocks, to 

 a fine sand or powder, aided also by numerous 

 minute Crustacea and animalcule, whose slender 

 forms have recently been discovered in myriads in 

 deposits of chalk, both marine and lacustrine. 

 Chalk may also have owed its origin to a sudden 

 precipitation from some chemical solution. 



CHALMERS, ALEXANDER, M. A., F. S. A., 

 a very voluminous writer and compiler for the 

 London booksellers, was born at Aberdeen, March 

 29, 1759, and was the youngest son of James Chal- 

 mers and Susanna Trail, daughter of the Rev. 

 James Trail, minister at Montrose. His father was 

 a printer at Aberdeen, who established the first 

 newspaper known at Aberdeen; which, after his 

 death in September, 1764, was carried on by his 

 eldest son, and is now the property of his grand- 

 son, Mr David Chalmers. His grandfather, the 

 Rev. James Chalmers, professor of divinity in the 

 Marischal college, died, much regretted, October 

 the 8th, 1744, aged fifty-eight. Having received 

 a classical and medical education, about the year 

 1777 he left his native city, and, what is remark- 

 able, he never returned to it. H had obtained 

 the situation of surgeon in the West Indies, and 

 2 A 



