GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE — THE GAULT. 



89 



state, or the myriad swarms of smaller cephalopoda have famished 

 the fertilizing phosphate ? I know of nothing to justify this idea, 

 unless the phosphatic pellets we not uncommonly find in juxta- 

 position with the little Belemnites of the gault are the shrivelled 

 bodies of the cuttle-fish, whose internal supports they were. That 

 which seems to me probable is that this remarkable band derives its 

 origin from the organic debris of a great ocean, very clear of mineral 

 sedimentary matter, during a long period of time ; or, that when the 

 alteration of physical condition took place, by which the sandy 

 deposits of the Lower Greensand were exchanged for the muddy 

 condition of the Gault, a deposition of organic debris took place, 

 derived from the destruction possibly of a part of the fauna of the 

 Cretaceous sea, by the influx of unfavourable currents, or from the 

 washing in to its area of some previous accumulation of the decaying 

 substances of some coastal region. 



Be this as it may, the subjacent greensand, comparatively free 

 from calcareous or argillaceous matter, indicates the clearness of the 

 water in which it was deposited; and when the cessation of its 

 deposit took place, the mineral characters of the Gault shew that 

 it derived its origin from a very different source. Between the 

 periods of these two deposits is it unreasonable to suppose an 

 interval of local quiescence and freedom from any of the wasting 

 operations which produced the sedimentary materials of the Gault 

 and Greensand to have taken place, during which the organic matter 

 of the Cretaceous sea fell to the bottom, to form in future ages a vast 

 store of mineral manure. 



How unconscious of all this was the ornamented ammonite, sport- 

 ing in its glittering shell, or the teredo boring the drifting wood. 

 When we think how the dead and putrid things falling in the ocean's 

 depths in after ages may be changed into uread — how rich in 

 treasure is the slime and bottom of the deep ; when we think that in 

 the silent waters, dark and deep, myriads of toiling creatures were at 

 their busy work millions of ages since ; when we look through the 

 long vista of time, and contemplate the changes that probably have 

 happened to the little clot of eartli that forms our muscles, nerves, 

 and bones ; when we think that the gay and scented flowers might 

 have been once the refuse of the deep, and that in the changes of 



VOL. III. M 



