INTRODUCTION. 



19 



same means in interesting a large audience that I have 

 adopted for many years descending from star-dust to 

 earth-dust. One of my own earliest experiments, as 

 characteristic of the almightiness of God in little things, 

 was with the chalk which abounds in my own neighbour- 

 hood. Weighing out exactly one grain of this material, 

 finely powdered, I counted in it 4066 separate fossils ; a 

 fourpenny piece I found to weigh just twenty-nine grains ; 



Forarninifera, \vith sponge spicules. Five different forms composing 

 chalk, the average weight of each of the former being only the ^^ part 

 of a grain. 



so that 117,914 of these animal animals, which once in- 

 habited the primeval seas, weighed no more than my 

 fourpenny piece. By an easy calculation, it was found 

 that one pound weight of this powdered chalk, therefore, 

 would contain 28,462,000 fossils. The learned doctor has 

 amplified this fact. 



