168 WALKS AND TALKS. 



If we pulverize some of this chalk and examine the parti- 

 cles with a microscope, we discover that the greater part con- 

 sists of minute shells or shell-fragments. Indeed, here is 

 Globigerina again ! We found Globigerina in our "Walk Un- 

 der the Sea" (Talk IX.) Billions upon billions of these 

 minute shells accumulated together, have formed that white 

 ooze which overspreads so large a part of the deep sea-bottom. 

 If some of that ooze should be compressed and dried, it would 

 be exceedingly like chalk. There is little doubt that the real 

 chalk so abundant in Europe, was originally a white ooze in 

 the bottom of the ocean the deep parts of the ocean when 

 much of Great Britain and the continent was buried in abyssal 

 waters. What we found in the depths of the Atlantic must 

 be a modern picture of the condition of the ancient ocean 

 which covered Europe some millions of years ago. The bot- 

 tom of the Atlantic was then the bottom of the Atlantic. Its 

 present [condition has been perpetuated from the Cretaceous 

 Age ; and many of the minute forms accumulating there to- 

 day are generically identical with the forms which lived when 

 the chalk was a sea-bottom. 



A few years ago, when these things were first ascertained, 

 and the first announcement was made that the fossil forms of 

 the chalk were still living in the Atlantic a triumphant outcry 

 was made through the newspapers by the ignorant enemies of 

 geological science. It has since Cuvier, always been a funda- 

 mental doctrine in geology, that the earth's surface has been 

 occupied by a succession of populations showing progressive 

 advancement toward the modern aspects of the world. But 

 "here," they affirmed, "we find no change since the chalk. 

 The foundation of geology is disrupted. The so-called science 

 is a baseless mass of ' theories ! ' There is no sound evidence 

 of the great age of the world. The ' days ' of Genesis were 

 twenty-four hours long. Hurrah ! " 



The life of geology was scarcely conscious of a ripple. The 

 old principles rest firmly. The facts cited, instead of proving 

 destructive, confirm another doctrine even more dreadful than 

 that of successive faunas and great antiquity the doctrine 



