202 ENGLISH CHALK DOWNS. 



wall of chalk upon the northern horizon, lighted 

 up by the full rays of the fronting sun, and 

 stretching from Siiaksi)eare's Cliff, near Dover, to 

 the great steep promontory of lieachy Head, just 

 above Eastbourne. That was the Albion of the 

 early Gaulisli merchantmen — that is the Albion 

 that every Continental European still beholds be- 

 fore him as he slowly nears, in ship or steamer, 

 the coast of England. Over and over agtiin 

 around the British Isles, those sheer white walls 

 rise proudly from the sea, as if to defend and 

 guard the ap])roaches to our country from the 

 Continental side. Tliey begin in the tall chalk 

 bluffs of IJeer in Devon, the westernmost outlier 

 of the cretaceous system in this corner of Europe ; 

 they continue at intervals along the Dorset coast 

 about Weymouth and Lulworth ; they form the 

 sharp, jagged summits of the Needles in the Isle 

 of Wight and the grand barrier of the Main 

 Bench in Freshwater Bay ; they reapi)ear once 

 more in the Culver Cliffs that gleam across the 

 sea near the entrance to Portsmouth ; they rise 

 again on the Marine Parade at Brighton, whence 

 they stretch past Beachy Head with a few breaks 

 and intermissions to Dover ; they give origin to 

 the North Foreland and the familiar ledges of the 

 Isle of Tlianet ; thence the}' sweep round almost 

 unseen by the Norfolk bulge to the Wolds of 

 Lincolnshire, and finally abut on the German 



