I ON A PIECE OF CHALK 3 



true clialk occurs were circumscribed, they would 

 lie within an irregular oval about 3,000 miles in 

 long diameter — the area of which would be as 

 great as that of Europe, and would many times 

 exceed that of the largest existing inland sea — 

 the Mediterranean. 



Thus the chalk is no unimportant element in 

 the masonry of the earth's crust, and it impresses 

 a peculiar stamp, varying with the conditions to 

 which it is exposed, on the scenery of the districts 

 in which it occurs. The undulating downs and 

 rounded coombs, covered with sweet-grassed turf, 

 of our inland chalk country, have a peacefully 

 domestic and mutton-suggesting prettiness, but 

 can hardly be called either grand or beautiful. 

 But on our southern coasts, the wall-sided cliffs, 

 many hundred feet high, with vast needles and 

 pinnacles standing out in the sea, sharp and 

 solitary enough to serve as perches for the wary 

 cormorant, confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur 

 upon the chalk headlands. And, in the East, 

 chalk has its share in the formation of some of 

 the most venerable of mountain ranges, such as 

 the Lebanon. 



What is this wide-spread component of the 

 surface of the earth ? and whence did it come ? 



You may think this no very hopeful inquiry. 

 You may not unnaturally suppose that the 

 attempt to solve such problems as these can lead 



