94 Selections from Huxley 



condition for long ages. And not only do the remains 

 of stately oaks and well-grown firs testify to the duration 

 of this condition of things, but additional evidence to 

 the same effect is afforded by the abundant remains of 

 5 elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and other great 

 wild beasts, which it has yielded to the zealous search of 

 such men as the Rev. Mr. Gunn. 



When you look at such a collection as he has formed, 

 and bethink you that these elephantine bones did veritably 



10 carry their owners about, and these great grinders crunch, 

 in the dark woods of which the forest-bed is now the 

 only trace, it is impossible not to feel that they are as 

 good evidence of the lapse of time as the annual rings 

 of the tree-stumps. 



15 Thus there is a writing upon the wall of cliffs at 

 Cromer, and whoso runs may read it. It tells us, with 

 an authority which cannot be impeached, that the ancient 

 sea-bed of the chalk sea was raised up, and remained dry 

 land, until it was covered with forest, stocked with the 



20 great game whose spoils have rejoiced your geologists. 

 How long it remained in that condition cannot be said; 

 but " the whirligig of time brought its revenges " in those 

 days as in these. That dry land, with the bones and 

 teeth of generations of long-lived elephants, hidden away 



25 among the gnarled roots and dry leaves of its ancient trees, 

 sank gradually to the bottom of the icy sea, which covered 

 it w r ith huge masses of drift and boulder clay. Sea- 

 beasts, such as the walrus, now restricted to the extreme 

 north, paddled about where birds had twittered among 



30 the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. How long this state 

 of things endured we know not, but at length it came to 

 an end. The upheaved glacial mud hardened into the soil 

 of modern Norfolk. Forests grew once more, the wolf 

 and the beaver replaced the reindeer and the elephant; 



