IV 



Hut ton as Farmer 153 



mineralogy and geology. He made many journeys on 

 foot into different parts of England. In Norfolk itself 

 there was much to interest his attention. Every here 

 and there, the underlying white chalk came to the surface, 

 with its rows of fantastically -shaped black flints. To 

 the east, lay the Crag with its heaps of sea-shells, stretch- 

 ing over many miles of the interior. To the north, the 

 sea had cut a range of cliffs in the boulder-clay which, 

 with its masses of chalk and its foreign stones, presented 

 endless puzzles to an inquirer. To the west, the shores 

 of the Wash showed the well-marked strata of red chalk 

 and carstone, emerging from underneath the white chalk 

 of the interior. 



Hutton tells, in one of his letters written from Norfolk, 

 that he had grown fond of studying the surface of the 

 earth, and was looking with anxious curiosity into every 

 pit or ditch or bed of a river that fell in his way. 



After spending about two years in Norfolk, he took a 

 tour into Flanders, with the view of comparing the hus- 

 bandry there with that which he had been studying in 

 England. But his eyes were now turned to what lay 

 beneath the crops and their soils, and he took note of the 

 rocks and minerals of the districts through which he 

 passed. At last, about the end of the summer of 1754, he 

 settled down on his own paternal acres in Berwickshire, 

 which he cultivated after the most approved methods. 

 For fourteen years he remained immersed in rural pursuits, 

 coming occasionally to Edinburgh and making, from time 

 to time, an excursion to some more distant part of the 

 kingdom. His neighbours in the country probably looked 

 upon him only as a good farmer, with more intelligence, 



