GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE THE GAULT. 



205 



coimtriemeii, M. Jolm Twine, and M. Doctor Ricliard White, witli 

 snndrie others ; bnt these anthors, following the opinion one of the 

 other, are rather content to thinke it sometime so to have bin than 

 to labonr to find out by snndiy pregnant reasons that so it was 

 indeed. 



" The first appearance to move likelihood of this thing is the 

 neemes of land betweene England and France — to use the modern 

 names of both countries — that is, from the clifs of Dover nnto the 

 like cliffs lying betweene Calls and Bullin, for from Dover to Calls 

 is not the neerest land, nor yet are the soils alike ; the shore of 

 Dover appearing nnto the saylers high and chalkie, and the shore of 

 Calls low and altogether sandie, and in like manner the English 

 shore towards Sandwich, w^hich is more directly over against Calls 

 than Dover is, also doth. 



" These clifs on either side the sea, lying jnst opposite the one 

 nnto the other, both of one substance, that is, of chalke and flint, the 

 sides of both towards the sea, plainely appearing to bee broken off 

 from some more of the same stuffe, or matter that it hath sometime 

 by natm-e been fastened nnto ; the length of the said clifs along the 

 sea-shore being on the one side answerable in effect to the lengi^h of 

 the verie like on the other side, and the distance between both, as 

 some skilfiil saylers report, not exceeding twenty-four Enghsh miles, 

 are all gTeat arguments to prove a conjunction in time long past to 

 have beene betweene these two countries, whereby men did passe on 

 drie land from the one unto the other, as it were over a bridge or 

 isthmus of land, being altogether of chalke and flint, and containing 

 in length about the number of miles before specified, and in bredth 

 some sixe English miles or thereabouts, whereby our countrie was 

 then no iland, but peninsula, being thus fixed on to the maine con- 

 tinent of the world." 



In the quaint sententious language of this extract, so character- 

 istic of the style adopted by authors of the early part of the seven- 

 teenth century, there are many striking truths which the judgment 

 of the reader will at once perceive. 



Desmarest, in 1753, in his memorable paper, read before the 

 Societe d'Emulation of Amiens, repeated the evidences previously 

 brought forward by Yerstegan, but carried them a step farther, 



