Rev. E. Hill — Stevn's Klint, Denmark. 71 



at its base, 8 feet or more ; theu chalk : the line between the 

 second and third members is sharp. One object of my visit was to 

 examine whether any disturbances in the Chalk had affected over- 

 lying beds. At Hojerup the upper surface of the Chalk is irregular, 

 somewhat following the wavings of certain flint bands in it. There 

 was a good section of a drift-filled hollow, where the drift showed 

 an appearance of two members with streaks like bedding near the 

 division. These streaks did not bend down into the hollow. If 

 they marked beds, I concluded that here was a hollow filled by 

 subsequent deposition, not Chalk with drift bent conjointly. The 

 evidence would probably not have convinced a leader of opposition, 

 but it will presently be seen that debate is silenced by a ' previous 

 question.' 



The Drift lies on an irregular surface of a white limestone, a rock 

 which nothing I have seen in England represents or resembles. 

 Nothing represents it, for here are the very highest beds of the 

 Danish Chalk. Nothing resembles it, for we see white limestone 

 seamed with bands of grey flint. Not flints, but flint (or ought 

 I to say chert ?) in solid continuous sheets. The flint is as continuous 

 as the thicker sheets of white limestone which it divides. The 

 flint bands may reach as much as 8 inches in thickness, and at 

 Hojerup there may be six or eight in about 25 or 30 feet vertical. 

 Elsewhere they are often further apart and, I think, fewer. Their 

 colour varies from light to dark grey. The limestone resembles 

 clunch in colour and texture. It is extensively worked all along 

 tlie cliff for building material. It is sawn on the spot into rectangular 

 blocks, which are hoisted up to the cliff edge and carted inland for 

 cottages and farm buildings. 



The flint bands in the limestone do not lie horizontal or straight. 

 They undulate gently : I estimated one arc to have 50 feet of chord 

 to 10 feet of vertical height (what when we studied Newton's 

 "Principia" we were taught to call Sagitta). While considering 

 these undulations I gradually became aware that they were not 

 always parallel. The wavy bands were not identically bowed and 

 wavy ; the intervals between them thickened and thinned ; here 

 and there a band forked or died out. I had always supposed that 

 flint beds marked original horizontal surfaces of deposition, but 

 here were surfaces which hardly could have been all originally 

 horizontal. Flint sometimes fills cracks and joints. I began to 

 speculate on bowed surfaces of yielding to stress ; segregation 

 of silica along bending lines of weakness. But this would throw 

 doubt on many conclusions, and undermine some theories, perhaps 

 some of my own as well as others. While so " revolving sweet 

 and bitter thoughts " my eye fell on a guidebook remark—" Geologists 

 regard the Fakse Chalk as a coral-reef." Stevn's Klint is only some 

 fifteen miles from Fakse. So, after all, these waving layers, I suppose, 

 do indicate surfaces of an old sea-floor, but an uneven one. 



I find that Ussing ("Danmark's Geologi," p. 82) regards only 

 a few inches near the base as representing the pi'oper Fakse beds. 

 He designates the 30 or 40 feet above as Limsten, and considers 



