62 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



tastes and a geologist's legs will soon haste down the 

 broken slopes of the Folkestone Warren, and tramp 

 the flinty shingle with unwearying feet, that he may 

 feast his eyes on the magnificent sections of the chalk 

 formations which are presented all the way along. 

 If the tide is going out the walk under the cliffs is 

 perfectly safe, and for a considerable distance the 

 foreshore will prove a most attractive field to the 

 hunter of fossils. Here is found one of the most 

 accessible sections of the Gault, a dark stiff bluish 

 clay, which lies at the very base of the upper 

 Cretaceous strata, and described as being from 100 

 to 200 feet in thickness. Immense quantities of 

 iron pyrites and phosphatic nodules lie about, some 

 of them so smooth and spherical that paterfamilias 

 may carry them home for marbles, while others are 

 bright with sulphur, and present, when split open, 

 the most graceful crystalline forms. But more 

 valuable than these to the geologist are the swarms 

 of Ammonites, many of them resplendent with the 

 hues of mother-of-pearl, the numerous Belemnites, 

 so called from their resemblance to a horny dart, 

 the regularly grooved shells of the Inoceramus, the 

 finely streaked Nucula, the curious Hamite, and 

 many others, which are thickly strewn about. In 

 some places the bed looks like one mass of fossils, 

 and all around 



" Are shapes of shells, and forms 

 Of creatures in old worlds, and nameless worms, 

 Whole generations which lived and died ere man, 

 A worm of other class, to crawl began." 



During several visits, none of them of more than 



