Chalk Cliff's near Dover. 27 
ployed in blasting the cliff, and squaring the chalk for the purposes 
of the harbour, always leave untouched such masses of it as fall, 
except they belong to the lower part of the bed ; which, containing 
fewer organic remains, is readily squared. The axe, when struck 
upon the chalk of the upper or middle part of this bed, returns a 
sound so exactly similar to that of striking upon flint, that the 
workman could only convince me that no flint was there, by clearing 
away what he had struck. 
Throughout this bed of organic remains, numerous thin veins of 
a grey colour run, generally speaking, parallel with the stratum. 
These veins however, are not straight, but undulate, terminating 
imperceptibly, being again renewed a little above or below. Some 
masses that had been split by the workmen along these veins, gave 
the opportunity of examining their nature, and it became very evi- 
dent that they originated in the presence of some organized body. 
It was easy to detach from every part of the newly exposed surface, 
hard conical masses, striated from the summit to the base by lines of 
a dirty brown colour, which were glossy and moist : and where the 
continuity of the cone was accidentally interrupted by fracture on 
the side, the same appearance was discoverable within. It was evi- 
dent that the nearly horizontal part of these grey veins connected 
together the neighbouring conical masses. Wherever a flint or a 
shell was imbedded in contact with one of these veins, it exhibited 
superficially the same striated appearance as the conical masses of 
chalk. 
The flints interspersed through this bed of organic remains are 
generally of remarkable forms, and shew either internal or external 
evidence of their having been formed in or upon some organized 
body. They are not uncommonly of a nearly spherical shape ; and 
when solid, there is uniformly, as far as my observation goes, a 
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