8G 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
are as sure as fate, and in one narrow 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 liave 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." Mystery 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 — glittering with metallic pyrites (sulphuret of iron) and 
seamed with glassy crystals (selenite — sulphate of Hme) there is that 
curious conglomerate of rounded potato-like lumps of phosphate of 
lime and scraggy gnarled boughs of trees. The gnarly boughs do 
Lign. 10. — Fragment of Dicotyledonous Wood bored by Teredo. From the " Junction- (phos- 
phate of lime) bed," at Copt Point, Folkestone. 
tell us something ; riddled through and through by Fisttdana 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 written 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 
window, or a discolored coat in the dexter comer of an old Holbein 
may give not only the name of the benefactor, or of the portrait, but 
