The Rev. W. E. Hony on Maestricht. 311 



About a league from Maestricht you obtain a good section of 

 the lower beds of the hill, and these are decidedly chalk, containing 

 beds of flint nodules from two to three feet distant from each other. 

 The chalk appears to contain fewer fossils than that which we have 

 in this country, but in the nature of these fossils, and in every 

 other respect, completely resembles it. 



Above these are beds resembling the chalk in colour, but more 

 hard and gritty to the touch. 



Above these again lie a succession of beds of the calcareous free- 

 stone of which the mass of the hill is composed, and it is in these 

 that the quarries are situated. This stone is of a yellowish colour, 

 and so extremely soft in the quarry that it may be easily cut with 

 a knife j it becomes however of a lighter colour and more hard by 

 exposure to the air. Here and there is found a thin stratum com- 

 pletely made up of fragments of marine substances ; these are chiefly 

 species of corallines and madrepores mixed with shells. In these 

 thin strata the remains are much less perfect than in those which 

 contain fewer of them, and their substance is so extremely tender 

 that it is very difficult to obtain a specimen which does not break 

 to pieces immediately. Such parts of the rock, though of course 

 unfit for building, are not useless, but are broken down, and in that 

 state conveyed by the Meuse to Holland as a manure for the 

 meadow land. 



The whole of these beds from the chalk to the top of the hill 

 are separated from each other by beds of flints, which exactly re- 

 semble those found in the chalk, presenting like them the usual 

 appearance of having been formed on corallines, &c. 



The beds of flints in the chalk and lower strata of freestone, as 

 has been mentioned, are at a distance from each other of not more 

 than two or three feet, but as you ascendd, the istance betvveen 

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