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habitations of animals which could live only in sea water ; com- 

 paratively free from remains of land animals and plants, few of 

 which conld be carried out to deep water before they decayed and 

 were dismembered. The very dust itself into which you crush a 

 bit of chalk is a collection of fairy shells, microscopic, but often 

 wondrously and richly ornamented with that lavishness of beauty 

 so characteristic of Nature. 



These chalk deposits cover as I said a very large area ; they are 

 found from Ireland all across to the east of Europe, and as far south 

 as Spain. Not, however, in one continuous sheet, but in detached 

 portions. Probably the area was not wholly water, but studded 

 with islands and other masses of land, large and small, upon which 

 of course no deposit could be formed. But in many cases masses 

 once forming a continuous whole have been cut into, and subdivided 

 by the agency of rain and rivers. 



The chalk just here is that known as the Lower Chalk, which 

 Professor Geikie in his recent book includes in what is called on 

 the continent Cenomian. It is marked by the absence of those lines 

 of flints so noticeable in the cliffs beyond Dover. At its base is the 

 deposit called the Grey Chalk, now so well known through the 

 newspapers m connection with the proposed tunnel. It is very 

 compact, and much freer from joints and crevices than the White 

 Chalk. Hence it is probably the formation through which the 

 tunnel will be driven. A tunnel there will undoubtedly be, some 

 day, when England shall cease to be afraid of invasion, and when 

 the principles that statesmen and scientific men profess that they 

 profess aboat the brotherhood of nations, shall be principles to be 

 acted upon and not mere opinions. 



The whole of the coast between this spot and Folkestone is a 

 kind of undercliff produced partly by gradual crumbling under the 

 influences of frost and rain, but still more rapidly through the 

 action of the land streams working through at various depths where 

 the upper portions rest on a less permeable mass. To this agency 

 have been owing the many landslips, some of which have aftected 

 the railway ; and those of us who were present on the two former 

 occasions of our assembling here cannot fail to be struck with what 

 has happened in this way since then. Notice that the sea, upon 

 which people generally lay the blame, has had very little to do 

 ■with the waste here ; all it has done has been to clear away the 

 rubbish which has fallen from the cliff. So that it has always 

 seemed to me that a strong sea wall would not in itself do much to 

 stay the waste ; it rather wants an effectual system of deep drain- 

 age, which would probably be difficult to carry out, and certainly 

 very expensive. 



On the chalk rocks lying in the bed of the sea and over which 



