80 SELECTED ESS A YS FROM LA Y SERMONS 



and, it is probable, that the climate was more like that of 

 Canada or Siberia, than that of Western Europe. 



The existence of these people is forgotten even in the 

 traditions of the oldest historical nations. The name and 

 fame 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 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 generations of men the greatest 

 age that can possibly be claimed for them, they are not 

 older than the drift, or boulder clay, which, in comparison 

 with the chalk, is but a very juvenile deposit. You need 

 go no further than your own sea-board for evidence of this 

 fact. At one of the most charming spots on the coast of 

 Norfolk, Cromer, you wdll see the boulder clay forming a 

 vast mass, which lies upon the chalk, and must conse- 

 quently 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 w^hich has planted blocks of syenite from 

 Norway side by side with them. 



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 the drift is a comparatively insignificant layer, 

 containing vegetable matter. But that layer tells a wonder- 

 ful 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, 



