How Chalk is Made 



If a lump of chalk is examined by the chemist, 

 its principal substance is found to be Carbonate 

 of Lime. 



Now there is something very remarkable about 

 Carbonate of Lime. It is absolutely different 

 from the materials of which sandstone and 

 granite are made. Wherever we stumble upon 

 carbonate -of- lime, there we are on the track 

 of Life. And the moment that we touch upon 

 Life, even in its simplest and lowest forms, we 

 rise to a higher level. 



Hitherto, in this subject of the Mighty Deep, 

 we have had to do with things inanimate ; things 

 without consciousness ; things blindly controlled 

 by the forces of nature. In the story of ocean- 

 waters, of ocean -salt, of ocean -rivers, of ice- 

 bergs and ice-floes. Life has no part. There is 

 no life in a grain of sand, no life in a granite 

 rock. 



But here, suddenly, we are arrested. Here, in 

 the composition of Chalk, we come across a 

 difference. Here, at one step, we pass over 

 a vast dividing chasm, and stand face to face 

 with that which has Life. 



Not indeed that which lives now, but with that 

 which did live, the signs of which may better 

 help us to understand Life in the present. 



137 



