Chalk and Flint Formation. 23 



it, from which the modern scientific adherents of the 

 nebular theory may take a sounder lesson of the 

 rational consequences of such a theory, than modern 

 science has attained to. Astronomers have thought 

 that the rings of Saturn may illustrate Laplace's 

 idea of the rings left behind in the consolidation of 

 the planet, of which a portion had already parted and 

 formed into satellites, and the remainder may yet in 

 process of time part into other nearer satellites. 

 But might they not equally see an illustration of the 

 fact that the tendency is first to contract into smaller 

 bodies, these gradually running into larger, and these 

 larger at length gathering into a planet, in the fact 

 of those two hundred small planetary bodies called 

 the " asteroids," coursing round the sun between the 

 orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and which occupy in the 

 solar system approximately the position where, 

 according to Bode's law of proportionate distances, 

 a planet might be expected to be, and which, in the 

 gradual course of ages, may eventually be drawn 

 together to form one planet ? Might not this as well 

 be taken to illustrate the theory of Leucippus, as 

 Saturn's rings to illustrate that of Laplace ? Appro- 

 priately to the thought, meteoric stones are spoken of 

 by the same name, as " the smallest of all asteroids; " 

 and, speaking of the different meteoric streams of 

 small cosmical bodies, Baron Humboldt remarks, that 

 "the smaller planets between Mars and Jupiter 

 present us, if we except Pallas, with an analogous 

 relation in their constantly intersecting orbits." 



But we have to deal at present only with the 

 chalk and flint formation ; and not with theory 

 but with facts. I affirm, then, that the facts 

 demonstrate that this formation is not of marine 

 origin, nor of land origin ; but from a source equally 



