THE GEOLOGIST. 



I have pointed out also the capping of brick-earth and ossiferous 

 marl on the West Cliff, to show to the inexperienced student that the 

 juxta-position of strata is no proof of relationship ; but that beds of 

 earth lying together in proximity may be far removed from each in 

 the dates of their formation, and indeed may belong to very different 

 causes and events. In this case, as in others, the fossils are the true 

 medals of the past ; and here they teach us that while the cretaceous 

 rocks exhibit from top to bottom the dominion of the sea in a remoter 

 age, the marls and brick-earth were not deposited until after the 

 marine sediments of the cretaceous rocks had been first raised into 

 dry land, and then denuded or worn away — sHced off — to the extent 

 of at least a thousand feet in vertical height ; and that while the 

 foi-mer group belongs to the mid-period of the earth's history, the 

 latter is of recent date, but just preceding if not coeval with the first 

 appearance of man, for the fossils it contains are those of the great 

 terrestrial beasts, with the remains of which in other places the flint- 

 implements and other traces of his works are. found. Let us then 

 briefiy tell the story of those events — it has been often told before, 

 but no matter, everyone has not heard it, and even those who have 

 delight to dwell upon it — and those ancient physical conditions with 

 which the geological history of the gault is associated. The con- 

 secutive chain of events is as readily conceived as it is plainly to be 

 traced. 



First, the old dry land of oolitic rock, with its thick umbrageous 

 forests, and its enormous river pouring into a delta — rivalhng that of 

 tlie Ganges — sediments that formed the Wealden beds, sank gTadually 

 below the level of the sea, and the great accumulation of the lower 

 gi-t'iMisand look place. The depression of the land still going on, the 

 finer deposit of mud reached higlier on the sinking coast, and en- 

 croaching on the sands as they sank deeper and deeper beneath the 

 waves, (ho Greensand became covered by the Gault. The upper 

 griHMisand would seem to indicate a temporary elevation, or at least 

 a shoaling of the water. Again, a further sinking carried the once 

 dry gix)und to the depths of the ocean, where in the quietest cahn of 

 (hr ahyss lived those little Foraminiters, whose tiny shells chiefly 

 loi in the mountain mass of chalk. 



Tlie Foriland-stouc, on which rest the Wealden beds (of fresh- 



