14 



parently a fact, that a considerable portion of those pro* 

 digious cliffs of chalk and calcareous stone, that in many 

 places control the advance of the ocean, protrude in 

 rocks through its waters, or incrust such large portions 

 of the globe, are of animal origin the exuviae of marine 

 substances, or the labors of minute insects, which once 

 inhabited the deep. In this conclusion now chemists 

 and philosophers seem in great measure to coincide. 

 Fourcroy observed, forty years ago, that " it could not 

 be denied, that the strata of calcareous matter, which 

 constitute, as it were, the bark or external covering of 

 our globe, in a great part of its extent, are owing to the 

 remains of the skeletons of sea animals, more or less 

 broken down by the waters ; that these beds have been 

 deposited at the bottom of the sea, immense masses of 

 chalk, deposited on its bottom, absorb or fix the waters, 

 or convert into a solid substance part of the liquid 

 which fills its vast basins*" Supplement to Chemistry, 

 p. 263. Such are the conclusions of philosophical in- 

 vestigation ; and the discoveries of all our circumnavi- 

 gators fully corroborate these decisions as to formation. 

 Revelation in part accounts for the removal of these 

 stupendous masses ; though, probably, unrecorded con- 

 cussions since the great subversion of our planet have, 

 in remote periods, effected many of the removals of 

 these deposits. We find the basement of many of the 

 South Sea Islands, some of which are twenty miles long^ 

 formed of this matter. Captain Flinders, in the gulf of 

 Carpentaria, held his course by the sides of limestone 

 reefs, five hundred miles in extent, with a depth irregu- 

 lar and uncertain ; and still more recently Captain 

 King, seven hundred miles, almost a continent, of rock, 

 increasing, and visibly 1 fonning : all drawn from the 

 waters of the ocean by a minute creature, that wonder- 

 ful agent in the hands of Providence, the coral insect. 

 This brief account of the origin of calcareous rocks 

 was, perhaps, necessary before mentioning an extraor- 

 dinary fact, that, after the lapse of so vast a portion of 

 time since the basement of the mighty deep was heaved 

 on high, existing proofs of this event should remain in 

 our obscure village. 



