cormorant, confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur upon the chalk
headlands. And, in the East, chalk has its share in the formation of some
of the most venerable of mountain ranges, such as the Lebanon.

What is this wide-spread component of the surface of the earth? and
whence did it come?


You may think this no very hopeful inquiry. You may not unnaturally
suppose that the attempt to solve such problems as these can lead to no
result, save that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations,
incapable of refutation and of verification. If such were really the
case, I should have selected some other subject than a "piece of chalk"
for my discourse. But, in truth, after much deliberation, I have been
unable to think of any topic which would so well enable me to lead you to
see how solid is the foundation upon which some of the most startling
conclusions of physical science rest.

A great chapter of the history of the world is written in the chalk. Few
passages in the history of man can be supported by such an overwhelming
mass of direct and indirect evidence as that which testifies to the truth
of the fragment of the history of the globe, which I hope to enable you
to read, with your own eyes, to-night. Let me add, that few chapters of
human history have a more profound significance for ourselves. I weigh my
words well when I assert, that the man who should know the true history
of the bit of chalk which every carpenter carries about in his breeches-
pocket, though ignorant of all other history, is likely, if he will think
his knowledge out to its ultimate results, to have a truer, and therefore
a better, conception of this wonderful universe, and of man's relation to
it, than the most learned student who is deep-read in the records of