26 The Origin of the 



of the other ingredients blown into incandescent 

 chalk dust. This simultaneous origin appears to be 

 indicated by the grains of white chalk seen under the 

 microscope to be disseminated in the dark flint ; 

 which have, in its fluid state, worked towards the 

 surface, and formed there a skin of flinty chalk as 

 above suggested. That white crust may also, in many 

 cases, have been increased from the molten silica 

 having incorporated with itself externally a portion 

 of the soft chalk into which it fell ; with which I 

 have learned from a practical artist in glass, that 

 it would have a tendency to combine. The same 

 appears also from portions of the purest soft white 

 chalk being found imbedded and completely enclosed 

 in the substance of many of the larger flints, which, 

 at the same time, bear evidence of having fallen 

 not upon white chalk, but upon reddish marl. In 

 other cases the molten flint, falling upon a hard 

 flat surface, has spread out in tabular masses, or 

 run into cracks and fissures of the cliffs. In many 

 cases also their fall must have been into the sea, 

 which covers two-thirds of the globe. 



A statement which was made some years ago by 

 an eye-witness, at Fawley, near Southampton, 

 Hants, of the fall of two meteors, one of which was 

 found to be a flint meteorolite, appeared to me to 

 favour this view. One of the meteors leaving 

 behind it a long train of sparks, after bursting into 

 an intense flame, left a luminous vapour or cloud, 

 carried gently by the wind for some time, and 

 assuming various shapes. A cloud of incandescent 

 chalk dust might be thus carried by the wind some 

 distance, and while the heavier flint fell nearer, the 

 chalk might be, and in point of fact often has been, 

 carried further, and separately deposited on the 



