GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE — THE GAULT. 



129 



Some readers may doubtless wonder why I have wandered all 

 along this pretty coast to Lympne's old ruined Roman castrum, 

 which may appear, perhaps, to them to be as little connected with 

 .lie Folkestone gault as the Mansion House vdth St. Pauls. Never- 

 theless, there is some " reason in my madness." To the student 

 embued with the love of nature the science of geology offers at once 

 a sublime and unlimited expanse : he is in a transport of delight at 

 every step with the knowledge he obtains. Every new opening and 

 unfolding of the great book of the past overwhelms him with the 

 immensity of the ideas and reflections which arise. He has acquired 

 a new language, as it were, and can read the stirring stories recorded 

 in the ponderous volume. To the world, occupied with its cares and 

 trials, its anxieties, or its pleasures, the volume hes open spread, but 

 few or none read the language in which it is wi^itten. So when we 

 isolate a locality, and attempt to teach its geology to the mass, we 

 must treat our subject as a simple story— as one simple incident in 

 the eventful past. We must have a oneness of purpose, a sturdy 

 truth, which however we may attempt to gTace it, must be the lesson 

 we have to teach. I have read in some old Danish writer's tale of 

 one Trimalchio, who had his epitaph written on a sun-dial, that 

 everybody who consulted it might read his name. With worthier 

 purpose I hope to engrave some solemn truths on these pages, which, 

 gentle reader, form our meeting-place, and by as pleasantly as I can, 

 making a book of science one of amusement also, tempt you to come 

 where these truths may be read. " A fisherman must bait his hooks 

 to the taste of the little fishes, if he expects to catch them," and 

 philosophers -^oll never succeed by dry and arid language in tempt- 

 ing those who seek for recreation and instruction after the labours 

 and duties of life. For such I write, for those who with elastic 

 tread and hearts lightened in holiday time of their ordinary daily 

 duties are seeking recreation in the innocent study of God's works 

 and renovated health in the cool breezes from the sea ; these I pre- 

 sume not to know the geologic history of this blue clay band. For 

 their sakes it has been that I have rambled all along the shore to 

 show them how the Gault forms one section of the great Cretaceous 

 group, of which those other strata, although so diffei-ent in their 

 mineral character, form also parts. 



VOL, III. ■ R 



