34 ° 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. X. 
What outpouring of notes full of all the affection 
and feeling conceivable ! Came away as soon as 
the last shower of bouquets had fallen to tell all 
the story to my dear little wife, who got the 
conceit in her head that I must be about one of 
the happiest men in the world ; and truly I must 
own that yesterday was a day which is worth 
living for. One enjoys a holiday or a pleasure- 
making so thoroughly when it has been earned.’ 
On June 17, 1849, Owen writes to his sister 
Eliza, from Worthing, about an excursion he made 
to some chalk-pits near Arundel (Southeram), 
together with J. E. Gray, F. Dixon, and Lord 
Northampton, ‘who is an ardent collector of flint 
fossils.’ He says : ‘ One of the pitmen remarked, 
when his lordship had been hammering over one 
heap through a long afternoon, “ That man doan’t 
work for his living ; if he went on that gate he 
could do nought next day. . . .” The “ Houghton ” 
pit is the oldest and largest of the escarpments ; 
it forms a magnificent amphitheatre of soil, enclos- 
ing a verdant, undulating area, along which the 
river Arun meanders. A wonderful quantity of 
the rarest British plants flourish in this retired, 
out-of-the-world spot, from which a fine extent of 
the chalk country is seen, chequered by shady 
groves and sunny plains, with much of the demesne 
of Arundel Castle included in the scene. Here 
our rustic table was set out with four seats, and 
here, after some hours’ good work, we sat down 
