THE GEOLOGIST. 



Ever since I knew it has tlie WaiTen been jnst like this — almost 

 imi'uffled in its solemn and stately aspect even by tlie stormy sea. 

 Land, ^vater, sk^^. all too broadly grand to be speckled by tlie pigmy 

 waves, whose snUen somids the mighty cliffs bnt backwai'd thi-ow? 

 " faiiltering into whispers low."' Here then let ns begin- 

 There ai-e older men than I that know the "^Vai'ren well, and httle 

 is the change in it that they have seen. Like me they have grown 

 fi'om cliildhood into man : and more than 1. they have passed into 

 chLhlltood — dreary, sad. exhausting childliood. not fresh and yonng — 

 again ; and yet httle is the change that they have seen. There were 

 those tall white cliffs when they were boys : there was that " wi'eck 

 of ages'' spread below : there was that broad mass of chffs, and that 

 wide solemn glass of sea that daily showed theii' piure white fonns ; 

 there was that bine and shppery shore, those yellow sands, that 

 rocky tract. Motmds of fallen chalk were piled against the cliffs be- 

 yond, wliile only a casnal block tai'nished the verdant cai'pet of the 

 "Warren. 



Long years have flitted by since man recorded any change in this 

 serene and solemn scenery, Ah-eady the recording lines on the 

 tombstone's "frail and crnmbhng fi'ame" — the dead man's chi'onicle 

 — Toiicliod by time are half effaced. And then how slight the change 

 recorded. Well may we look np at those old cliffs and think how 

 old tliey are. 



But need I say that once, in time's long sequence of changes 

 strange, those clitis were Ocean's mnd — deep sea-bed ooze. How 

 long ago is that r Older than the days when perhaps the brazen 

 arms of conquering Konians clauered on this slippery strand: older 

 than the days of Phoenician traffic with otn' island's mines for tin ; 

 older tlian the aboriginal Briton, or the hahy mammoths that in- 

 habited this very land, ere Adam was. or human race began ; older 

 than that great and three-fold age (the Tertiary) when h^-ing spiecies 

 fii'st appeared : older than ten thousand times ten thousand ages is 

 the rock-mass of those fam and stately cliffs : and older stilh older 

 still by ages, is that dark blue clay that forms that shppery shore. 

 And this blue clay it is that has made Folkestone one of the chief 

 towns in the geological territory. Few geological localities have 

 been longer or more justly celebrated in the annals of geology than 



