.] THE WORLD OF CHALK. 265 



gravel-beds cover the country to the north, and often 

 to the thickness of many feet. Try and conceive, then, 

 what a much more vast mass of chalk must have been 

 washed away, to leave that vast mass of gravel behind 

 it. Conceive ? It is past conception. I will but 

 give you two hints as to its probable size. 



The chalk to the eastward, between here and Farn- 

 ham, is a far narrower and shallower band than any- 

 where else in England. Its narrowest point is, I believe, 

 beneath the bishop's palace at Farnham, where it may 

 be a hundred feet thick, instead of several hundred, as 

 it usually is in other parts of England. The cause of 

 this is, that the whole of the upper chalk has been 

 washed away, to form the gravel-beds to the north and 

 east of us. 



Again. Some of you may have been on the Hind 

 Head or on Leith Hill, and have looked southward 

 over the glorious prospect of the rich Weald, spread 

 out five hundred feet below a sight to make an 

 Englishman proud of his native land. Now, the mass 

 of chalk which has been carried away began behind 

 you, at the Hogsback, and the line of chalk-hills which 

 runs to Boxhill, and stretched hundreds of feet above 

 your head as you stand on Hind Head or Leith Hill, 

 right over the old Weald of Sussex to the chalk of the 

 South Downs. And out of the scourings of that vast 

 mass of chalk was our gravel-pit made. 



Of that, and also of the Hind Head sands below it. 



For you will find a great deal of sharp sand in our 

 gravel-pits, which has not, I believe, come from the 

 grinding of chalk flints ; for if it had been ground, it 

 would not be the sharp sand it is ; the particles would 

 be rounded off at the edges. This is probably sand 



