68 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



of them had utterly vanished until a few years back ; and the 

 amount of physical change which has been effected since their 

 day, renders it more than probable that, venerable as are some 

 of the historical nations, the workers of the chipped flints of 

 5 Hoxne or of Amiens are to them, as they are to us, in point 

 of antiquity. 



But, if we assign to these hoar relics of long- vanished gen- 

 erations of men the greatest age that can possibly be claimed 

 for them, they are not older than the drift, or boulder clay, 



jo which, in comparison with the chalk, is but a very juvenile 

 deposit. You need go no further than your own seaboard 

 for evidence of this fact. At one of the most charming spots 

 on the coast of Norfolk, Cromer, you will see the boulder clay 

 forming a vast mass, which lies upon the chalk, and must 



15 consequently have come into existence after it. Huge 

 boulders of chalk are, in fact, included in the clay and have 

 evidently been brought to the position they now occupy, 

 by the same agency as that which has planted blocks of 

 syenite from Norway side by side with them. 



20 The chalk, then, is certainly older than the boulder clay. 

 If you ask how much, I will again take you no further than 

 the same spot upon your own coasts for evidence. I have 

 spoken of the boulder clay and drift as resting upon the chalk. 

 That is not strictly true. Interposed between the chalk and 



25 the drift is a comparatively insignificant layer, containing 

 vegetable matter. But that layer tells a wonderful history. 

 It is full of stumps of trees standing as they grew. Fir trees 

 are there with their cones, and hazel bushes with their nuts ; 

 there stand the stools of oak and yew trees, beeches and alders. 



30 Hence this stratum is appropriately called the a forest-bed." 



It is obvious that the chalk must have been upheaved and 



converted into dry land, before the timber trees could grow 



upon it. As the bolls of some of these trees are from two to 



three feet in diameter, it is no less clear that the dry land thus 



