How Chalk is Made 



tiny fossil shells, more or less crushed and 

 broken. It has been reckoned that a cubic 

 inch of chalk probably holds at least one million 

 shells. 



Try to Imagine what this means. The work 

 of the Ocean In building solid sandstone, from 

 unnumbered myriads of myriads of grains of 

 sand, is marvellous enough. But here we have 

 something far more wonderful. 



Here we have rocks and cliffs, ranges of hills 

 and extents of country, to a great degree com- 

 posed of almost invisible sea-shells, so small, 

 so numerous, that a million or more of them may 

 be packed into one little cubic inch of space, 

 while the chalk-beds lie through hundreds of 

 miles. 



Think of continuous piles of these shells, 

 many hundreds of feet in thickness, all built 

 out of the dead shells of dying millions of tiny 

 creatures. Deep, deep below the surface, where 

 waves had no power, where currents were slug- 

 gish, fell a ceaseless gentle rain of these minute 

 shells. Life had fled from each jelly inhabitant ; 

 its brief day was over ; and the empty shell went 

 quietly down, whether from near the surface or 

 from lower depths, till it reached the ocean-bed. 

 There it lay, forming part of a gathering sticky 



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