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would be very awkwardly trying to the teeth. Above these is the 

 London Clay : below is the chalk. What story do these stones 

 tell ? They make it plain that, between the deposit of the chalk 

 and of the London Clay, times and ages elapsed of which some ac- 

 count ought to be attempted to be given. Flints have been washed 

 out of the solid chalk ; and these have been rolled on some ancient 

 shore till they have become discoloured and rounded. That shore 

 has afterwards become a deep sea-bed; and these pebbles have 

 become cemented together by a natural cement which is actually 

 harder than the flint itself. Ages have passed on ; and the rock 

 thus formed has itself been upheaved, and broken into fragments ; 

 and these broken fragments have themselves formed the pebbles of 

 some later shore, which had been rolling to and fro, and had done 

 its work, and again sunk beneath the deep sea, before the oldest of 

 the London Clay began to be deposited. Here, methinks, we see 

 an outline Table of Contents of a wonderful time; — of which all 

 the chapters are at present lost. Perhaps we may recover some of 

 them. I give the illustration to show how much of a story a single 

 pebble may carry within it, if looked at with reference to those re- 

 lations which necessarily belong to it. 



In using the microscope, every one knows how often it happens 

 that the casual gazer declares himself unable to see what the careful 

 investigator sees clearly before him. The reason is plain. The one 

 comes all unprepared with any previous knowledge of the Relations 

 of the things belonging to the class of object. The other looks at 

 every object aided by the light of that impression of Unity which 

 long and frequent previous study of related objects has made a 

 living part of his active intelligence. 



The Law of Unity, — namely, that everything we can find has its 

 relations to something else, and is but one form of illustration of a 

 wide-spread principle, — is the light by which every fact of Geology, 

 as of natural science in every branch, must be studied. One man 

 looks at a strange creature taken from the ocean, and sees in it a 

 marvel, which is so wondrous that he makes out of it a supporter to 

 the heraldic device of the nation that boasts herself Queen of the 

 Seas. Another bethinks him, while he looks curiously at the same 

 creature, that the Law of Unity does not deal in monsters, even 

 to support the honour of the British name ; and he sets to work, 



