Not by
spasmodic leaps and starts, but slowly and stately, as befits a God
of order, of patience, and of strength, have these great deeds been
done.
But we have not yet done with new worlds or new prodigies on our way
to London, as any Londoner may ascertain for himself, if he will run
out a few miles by rail, and look in any cutting or pit, where the
surface of the chalk, and the beds which lie on it, are exposed.
On the chalk lie--especially in the Blackheath and Woolwich district-
-sands and clays. And what do they tell us?
Of another new world, in which the chalk has been lifted up again, to
form gradually, doubtless, and at different points in succession, the
shore of a sea.
But what proof is there of this?
The surface of the chalk is not flat and smooth, as it must have been
when at the bottom of the sea. It is eaten out into holes and
furrows, plainly by the gnawing of the waves; and on it lie, in many
places, large rolled flints out of chalk which has been destroyed,
beds of shore-shingle, beds of oysters lying as they grew, fresh or
brackish water-shells standing as they lived, bits of lignite (fossil
wood half turned to coal), and (as in Katesgrove pits at Reading)
leaves of trees. Proof enough, one would say, that the chalk had
been raised till part of it at least became dry land, and carried
vegetation.
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