ON A PIECE OF CHALK 27 



and these great grinders crunch, in the dark woods 

 of which the forest-bed is now the only trace, it is 

 impossible not to feel that they are as good 

 evidence of the lapse of time as the annual rings 

 of the tree stumps. 



Thus there is a writing upon the wall of cliffs 

 at Cromer, and whoso runs may read it. It tells 

 us, with an authority which cannot be impeached, 

 that the ancient sea-bed of the chalk sea was 

 raised up, and remained dry land, until it was 

 covered with forest, stocked with the great game the 

 spoils of which have rejoiced your geologists. How 

 long it remained in that condition cannot be said ; 

 but " the whirligig of time brought its revenges " 

 in those days as in these. That dry land, with 

 the bones and teeth of generations of long-lived 

 elephants, hidden away among the gnarled roots 

 and dry leaves of its ancient trees, sank gradually 

 to the bottom of the icy sea, which covered it with 

 huge masses of drift and boulder clay. Sea-beasts, 

 such as the walrus, now restricted to the extreme 

 north, paddled about where birds had twittered 

 among the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. How 

 long this state of things endured we know not, 

 but at length it came to an end. The upheaved 

 glacial mud hardened into the soil of modern 

 Norfolk. Forests grew once more, the wolf and 

 the beaver replaced the reindeer and the elephant ; 

 and at length what we call the history of England 

 dawned. 



Thus you have, within the limits of your own 



