41 8 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



of trees and weeds. Some of the chalk-pits where they 

 were now breaking up and burning the chalk were near 

 the river ; others again some musket-shots therefrom ; 

 for they had taken away all the more suitable chalk from 

 nearer the river so that there was nothing left, but high 

 heaps, full of the earth they had sifted when they took 

 the chalk, and the soil which had lain upon it together 

 with pieces of flint, chalk, bricks, and other rubbish. In 

 these chalk-pits we had a very good chance of seeing how 

 thick the vegetable soil and the mould is which lies upon 

 the chalk, as well as all the various beds and strata of 

 chalk, with what is found in it, etc. At the top of the 

 pits, and upon the chalk, lay the vegetable mould or soil, 

 matjorden eller svartmyllan, commonly to a depth 

 of 15 inches, mixed with small pieces of flint, which 

 resembled those which lie on the open plain, and the 

 sun has bleached and made white. The colour of this 

 soil was brown. Yet the soil was not everywhere along 

 the top of the pit the same thickness ; for just [T. II. 

 p. 64] as it was 15 inches thick, so it went down in a 

 bow or curve to 4 feet perpendicular depth. Neither 

 was the breadth of such a sinus, vigg, everywhere the 

 same, for sometimes the upper part was 10 or 12 feet 

 wide, sometimes scarcely 2 feet. The depth of such 

 hollows was also unequal — now more, now less ; yet the 

 soil was commonly, beyond and above these pockets, 

 15 inches. 



Below that came the chalk. It was not quite pure at 

 the top, but to some small extent mixed with the brown 

 earth for a thickness of 3 feet. 



This mixed chalk thus looked dirty, and was also 

 charged with pieces of flint and full of small Pebblestones, 

 which, both flints as well as pebbles, exactly resembled 

 those which lay up to the day and were bleached by the 

 sun, which seems to indicate that these parts of the chalk, 



