86 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



ai^e as sure as fate, and in one nan^ow seam. Not many in kind, 

 two, or at most three, are the species whose remains are thus spread 

 over geographical tracts, expressible only in square miles. Myriads 

 of them must have perished to have formed this one tesselated floor 

 of the old Cretaceous sea. And here, gentle reader, is a mystery for 

 you to solve, or ponder on. Whence came these sharply broken 

 casts ? What current, or what force of ocean-water spread them 

 like road-metal, as it were, o'er the old sea-ooze ? 



But lower down again. I long to point you out that "junction- 

 bed." Mysteiy of all mysteries along this coast is the mystery there. 

 But there it is, solid and hard, about eighteen inches thick, jutting 

 out beyond the clay above and sand beneath- — red, yellow, brown, 

 and black — ghttering with metallic pyrites (sulphuret of iron) and 

 seamed with glassy crystals (selenite — sulphate of lime) there is that 

 curious conglomerate of rounded potato-like lumps of phosphate of 

 lime and scraggy gnarled boughs of trees. The gnarly boughs do 



LiG:ii. 10.— Fragment of Dicotyledonous Wood bored by Teredo. From me " Junction- Qjlios- 

 phate of Ume) bed," at Copt Point, Folkestone. 



tell us something ; riddled through and through by Fistulana and 

 Teredo, they speak most eloquently of their stormy wanderings over 

 the sea. But those round phosphatic lumps, what do they teach us ? 



"The sculptured stone, or the emblazoned shield often speaks 

 when the wi^tten records of history are silent. A grotesque carving, 

 coat, or badge in the spandril of some old church-door, or over the 

 portal of a decayed mansion often points out the stock of the other- 

 wise forgotten patron or lord. A dim-looking pane in an oriel 

 wiiuUnv, or a discolored coat in the dexter corner of an old Holbein 

 may give not only the name of the benefactor, or of the portrait, but 



