70 RAMBLING THOUGHTS IN A HANLEY MARL PIT. 



stone, as I have termed it ? Why we see lines, not flat, 

 or straight, or horizontal lines, but sloping, slanting lines. 

 These lines are the lines of stratification ; in other words, 

 the line of deposit of the sediment as it settled down 

 from the water. We shall have something more to say 

 about these lines presently, but I must ask you now to 

 direct your eyes to this pillar before me. What is it ? 

 A trunk of a tree. How came it here ? Well, it is to 

 endeavour to answer that question that I am occupying 

 your attention this evening. 



To every one of you to whom I have the honour of 

 speaking it is, I doubt not, familiar knowledge that in 

 hard rocks, however far removed from the present sea 

 coast, and however high above the sea level they may be, 

 on the summit of Snowdon or high on the Alps, we find 

 shells embedded in the rocks under such circumstances 

 and in such profusion as to leave no doubt whatever of 

 the rocks having been formed under sea water the natural 

 deduction at first sight being that the sea once attained 

 those high levels, more matured observations leading, how- 

 ever, to the inevitable conclusion that the rocks were de- 

 posited at a lower level, and have since by various causes, 

 operating through enormous periods of time, been raised 

 to dry land and to their present elevation. 



However wonderful and startling these deductions may 

 be, there is an obvious analogy between the shells in a 

 sandstone rock and the experience of a walk along the 

 sands of the present sea shore, covered more or less 

 profusely with shells. But if you will condescend to a 

 careful hand-to-eye observation of the mudstone around us, 

 while you will scarcely meet with a shell, you will find 

 abundant unmistakable traces of plants, some large remains 



