404 ON THE FORMATION OF THE CHALK STRATA, 



ed. We must therefore revert to an examination of the rocks 

 themselves, to the circumstances in which they are found to 

 exist, and to the fossil remains which are peculiar to the strata 

 of chalk ; and endeavour to ascertain how these circumstances 

 can be brought to combine with the formation of the beds 

 themselves. 



In England, particularly in the Isle of Wight, and on the 

 coast of Dorset, where the features of that rock have been so 

 faithfully delineated by the inimitable pencil of Mr Webster, 

 several sudden and very remarkable elevations of the strata 

 have been described. The limestone, after extending for a con- 

 siderable distance, in a position varying little from perfect ho- 

 rizontality, is all at once thrown up, and stands upon edge, 

 no alteration having taken place in the arrangement of its 

 flints, which are now piled on the top of each other, and ex- 

 posed to an influence, with respect to the superincumbent 

 weight, the very reverse of that mentioned by Daubuisson. 

 In the Isle of Wight at Freshwater and Culver cliffs, and 

 Scratchell Bay, and on the Dorset coast at Worthbarrow Bay, 

 Handfast Point, and Batts Corner, magnificent examples of this 

 are afforded. In all, strings of flints are seen disposed through- 

 out, in lines parallel to the strata, in every altered position. 

 Where we find similar bendings in strata, that are usually ho- 

 rizontal, the proximity of a whin-dike, an invasion of granite, 

 or some of the other crystalline rocks, afford the Huttonian 

 some grounds of conjecture as to the cause ; but the eccentri- 

 cities of the English chalk are dependent on some other cause, 

 — a cause which, from its effects, denotes itself to have been of 

 the most powerful description, and one to which Hutton 

 alone has alluded, in his hypothesis of the elevation of the 

 strata from the bottom of the sea. This force could not be 

 supposed always to have acted with perfect uniformity. Hence 



those 



