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Time would fail me to tell of all the creatures which

lived in my native sea. I remember that, after long ages had passed away, tremors were again and again felt to shake the sea-bottom. It was evident that some earthquake action was at work over a considerable area. By-and-by, we found the water getting shallower, and that the light came through the waves more clearly. The sea-bottom was being upraised; and at length what had formerly been ocean, became an extended mud-flat. The sea was drained off, and covered land which had sunk as ours had risen; and thus the two changed places. The upheaval went on, and the chalk hardened into its present solid state, and became a land surface.

Do not imagine that this upheaval was a sudden and violent process, as some have thought; on the contrary, it was exceedingly slow. The exact spot where I was born was at hundreds of yards depth of sea-water, and the upheaving process was probably not greater than at the rate of a few feet a century. From this you may form some idea of the time it took to lift me from my briny bed to the fresh air and hot sunshine. Meantime, whilst the chalk formation, of which I was an infinitesimal portion, was thus being upheaved, the sea was at work in other localities depositing strata similarly to the manner in which I had been originated. Not a single moment was idled away. The forces of Nature know no-Sabbath-they must toil on from the creation to the final consummation of all things! The great

work of the sea, ever since the waters were divided from the dry land, has been to lay the foundations of future continents, and even of mountain-chains. Her own barriers have thus been erected by herself, and then as slowly frittered away in order to establish them elsewhere. Geologically speaking, a "new earth" is always being formed! The old one is gradually altered, particle by particle, just as the human body changes its physiological structure, and yet retains its own individuality.

When I did appear above the surface of the sea, it was to form part of an extensive chalky mud-flat. Far as the eye could see, this monotonous landscape stretched away. Here and there an arm of the sea extended, as if old Neptune were loath to quit his sway and to see his recent territory possessed by his rival Tellus. The pasty mud hardened on the surface in the hot sunshine (for the latitude of what is now Great Britain then enjoyed a sub-tropical climate). The upheaval still proceeded, until, at length, after century upon century had passed away, the solid chalk was lifted high enough above the waves to form a tolerably steep coast-line.

For a long time, the hardened new-born chalk was perfectly bare. There was neither soil nor vegetation upon it. It extended in an undulating area, just as the sea-currents had carved it, for hundreds of miles. Wind and rain at length formed a light, chalky mould, which was rendered somewhat sandy by the admixture of flints that had been broken up

and pounded into dust. Sea-birds lived on the adjoining sea, and for centuries the chalk surface served them as a refuge from the storm, and to build their nasts upon. Their excrements, together with the light mould I have spoken of, laid the first foundations of the soils and subsoils which covered me up. Some of the birds left undigested seeds, brought from other lands, and these took root and flourished. The wind came laden with minute spores of moss and fern, and soon thick brakes and morasses clothed the marshy places with cheerful green. An occasional palm-nut was stranded upon the beach, where it grew, and shortly afterwards bore fruit, that spread itself in huge palm forests over an area which, many centuries before, had been nothing but an extensive and barren chalk-flat. In this manner a sub-tropical vegetation covered up the chalk of which I formed part. It has not taken me long to tell, in a general way, of the changes which were thus wrought, but it required hundreds of thousands of years to produce them. After the upheaval had continued for a long time, it suddenly ceased, and the chalky continent, with its wealth of virgin forests and innumerable inhabitants, remained at rest, and in this way the great TERTIARY epoch was ushered in! The ordinary physical laws of nature were in operation, just as they are now. I ought to have told you that the chalk continent extended from the west of Ireland, through Russia, as far as the coasts of what is now the Mediterranean Sea. It is also more than pro

bable that there was a northerly continuation of land across the Atlantic into America. Existing oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers are the results of subsequent processes, which, as may be imagined, took up an immense period of time to bring about.

CHAPTER XI.

THE STORY OF A LUMP OF CLAY.

"CAIN: And those enormous creatures,

Phantoms, inferior intelligence

(At least so seeming), to the things we have passed,
Resembling somewhat the wild habitants

Of the deep woods of earth, the hugest which
Roar nightly in the forest, but ten-fold

In magnitude and terror; taller than

The cherub-guarded wall of Eden, with

Eyes flashing like the fiery swords which fence them,
And tusks projecting like the trees stripped of

Their bark and branches--what were they?

[blocks in formation]

The mammoth is in thy world;-but these lie
By myriads underneath its surface."

BYRON'S Cain.

N outline of the biography of even such a humble individual as myself will not be without interest. I need not introduce myself in learned mineralogical language; for there is not a boy living, old or young, who has not made practical experiments on me. But as clay is not limited to any geological formation, but occurs most abundantly in the later deposits, perhaps it may be as well for me to say to which period I belong.

In the older rocks, what was once clay has since

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