:268 THOUGHTS IN A GEAVEL-PIT. [xi. 



it was found that at a depth averaging 1,600 fathoms 

 9,600 feet in utter darkness, the sea floor is covered 

 "with countless millions of animalcule- shells, of the same 

 families, though not of the same species, as those which 

 compose the chalk. 



At the bottom of a still ocean, then, the chalk was 

 deposited. But it took many an age to raise it to 

 where Odiham chalk-pit now stands. 



But how was it raised ? 



By the upheaving force of earthquakes. Or rather, 

 -by the upheaving force which causes earthquakes, 

 when it acts in a single shcck, cracking the earth's 

 crust by an explosion ; but which acts, too, slowly and 

 quietly, uplifting day by day, and year by year, some 

 portions of the earth's surface, and letting others sink 

 down ; as in the case of the valley of the Jordan and 

 the Dead Sea, which is now 1,300 feet below the level 

 of the Mediterranean. 



That these upheaving forces were much more violent 

 than now, in the earlier epochs of our planet, we have 

 some reason to believe : but the subject is too long a 

 one to enter on now; and all I can say is, that you 

 must conceive for yourself the chalk gradually brought 

 up to the surface, worn away along a shifting shore- 

 line by the waves of the sea, and covered in shallow 

 water by the clays and sands on which Odiham stands j 

 and which compose the earliest part of our second 

 world. 



A second world ; a new world. We can use no 

 weaker expression. When we compare the chalk with 

 the strata which lie upon it, we can only call them a 

 complete new creation. 



For not only were they deposited in shallow water ; 



