ONE of the tasks carried on in Ocean waters is Chalk-Building.
The “White Cliffs of Albion” and those also of Gaul are vast masses of chalk, containing layers of flint, and mixed with many other materials, but chiefly composed of the crumbling white substance, which is familiar to all who live near the North and South Downs.
This formation stretches a long way. The heights of Salisbury are of chalk. The Chiltern Hills are of chalk. The Yorkshire Wolds are of chalk. It is found in Norfolk; it is found in Kent; it is found in Surrey; it is found in Sussex. There are chalk-beds in France, in Germany, in other parts of Europe—not to speak of Asia—which, with those of Great Britain, extend through many hundreds of miles.
And wherever these masses of chalk are found, there we know that, once upon a time, the land lay under ocean-waves.
For Chalk, like Sandstone, was not formed on dry land. It could not be formed on dry land. It was built—it could only be built—under the sea, to be in later ages uplifted as dry land.
During those far-back days, when the chalk-beds of Europe were being made, a different state of things prevailed from that of the present. By far the greater part of Europe must have lain under water, from which the summits of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and other mountains emerged as groups of islands. Great Britain must have been chiefly or entirely hidden.
So far I have spoken of sandstone and chalk together. But a marked distinction—a vital distinction—exists between the two.
In the mode of their building they may be alike. In the materials of which they are built they are utterly different.
If a lump of chalk is examined by the chemist, its principal substance is found to be Carbonate of Lime.
Now there is something very remarkable about Carbonate of Lime. It is absolutely different from the materials of which sandstone and granite are made. Wherever we stumble upon carbonate-of-lime, there we are on the track of Life. And the moment that we touch upon Life, even in its simplest and lowest forms, we rise to a higher level.