Mr. Chalk

“ Mr. Chalk stole another look at him; Mrs. Chalk, somewhat suspicious, followed his example.
"It's a pity you never married, Captain Bowers," she said, at length; "most men seem to do all they can to keep things from their wives. But one of these days——"
She finished the sentence by an expressive glance at her husband. Captain Bowers, suddenly enlightened, hastened to change the subject.
"I haven't seen Tredgold or Stobell either," he said, gazing fixedly at Mr. Chalk.
"They—they were talking about you only the other day," said that gentleman, nervously. "Is Miss Drewitt well?" ”

“ Chalk.
"Joseph-is-a-nice-lad," said Mr. Chalk, recovering himself. "I have often thought——"
The sentence was never completed, being interrupted by a thundering rat-tat-tat at the front door, followed by a pealing at the bell, which indicated that the visitor was manfully following the printed injunction to "Ring also." The door was opened and a man's voice was heard in the hall-a loud, confident voice, at the sound of which Mr. Chalk, with one horrified glance in the direction of Captain Bowers, sank back in his chair and held his breath.
"Captain Brisket," said the maid, opening the door. ”

“ Chalk, shaking her head, "I am not going alone; if Mrs. Stobell can't come I would sooner stay at home."
Mr. Stobell's face cleared; his mouth relaxed and his dull eyes got almost kindly. With the idea of calling the attention of Mr. Chalk to the pleasing results of a little firmness he placed his foot upon that gentleman's toe and bore heavily.
"Best place for you," he said to Mrs. Chalk. "There's no place like home for ladies. You can have each other to tea every day if you like. ”

“ Chalk.
"She didn't want to come at first," said Mrs. Chalk; "she'd half promised to go to Mrs. Morris. Mrs. Morris had heard of her through Harris, the grocer, and he only knew she was out of a place by accident. He—"
Her words fell on deaf ears. Mr. Chalk, gazing through the window, heard without comprehending a long account of the capture of a new housemaid, which, slightly altered as to name and place, would have passed muster as an exciting contest between a skilful angler and a particularly sulky salmon. Mrs. Chalk, noticing his inattention at last, pulled up sharply. ”

“ Chalk's turn to appear surprised, and she did it so well that Mr. Chalk choked in his tea-cup. "About the yachting trip," she said, with a glance at her husband that made his choking take on a ventriloquial effect of distance.
"He—he didn't say anything to me about it," said Mrs. Stobell, timidly.
She glanced at her husband, but Mr. Stobell, taking an enormous bite out of a slice of bread and butter, made no sign.
"It'll do you a world of good," said Mrs. Chalk, affectionately. "It'll put a little colour in your cheeks."
Mrs. Stobell flushed. She was a faded little woman ”

“ The others glared at him luridly.
"He said that he had seen us through the skylight studying a paper," continued Mr. Chalk, shaking his head. "I thought at the time you were rather rash, Tredgold."
Mr. Tredgold choked and, meeting the fault-finding eye of Mr. Stobell, began to protest.
"The thing Brisket couldn't understand," said Chalk, gaining confidence as he proceeded, "was Stobell's behaviour. He said that he couldn't believe that a man who grumbled at the sea so much as he did could be sailing for pleasure."
Mr. Stobell glowered fiercely. "Why didn't you tell us before?" he demanded. ”

“ Chalk, shortly.
"We've all got to die some day," said the philosophic Mr. Stobell. "She's forty-six."
Mrs. Stobell interposed. "Not till September, Robert," she said, almost firmly.
"It wouldn't be nice to be buried at sea," remarked Mr. Chalk, contributing his mite to the discussion. "Of course, it's very impressive; but to be left down there all alone while the ship sails on must be very hard."
Mrs. Stobell's eyes began to get large. "I'm feeling quite well," she gasped.
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Chalk, with a threatening glance at her husband. "Of course, we know that. ”

“ When it does leak out it must be understood we are just going for a little pleasure jaunt. Mind, you've sworn to keep the whole affair secret."
Mr. Chalk screwed up his features in anxious perplexity, but made no comment.
"The weather's fine," continued Tredgold, "and there's nothing gained by delay. On Wednesday we'll take the train to Biddlecombe and have a look round. ”

“ The boy and two others dashed into the galley so hurriedly that the cook, who was peeping out, was borne backwards on to the stove and kept there, the things he said in the heat of the moment being attributed to excitement and attracting no attention. Tredgold, Brisket, and Stobell dodged behind the galley, and Mr. Chalk was left to gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the shrinking figure of Mr. Duckett at the wheel. They regarded each other in silence, until a stealthy step behind Mr. Chalk made him turn round smartly. Mr. ”

“ In England every part of our chalk is completely covered by vegetable soil, which although very thin on many parts of our downs or smooth hills, yet affords support to peculiar grasses and other vegetables, on which are pastured vast quantities of sheep. The chalk of Franco is said to contain 11 per cent. of magnesia, to which the barrenness may be owing. ↑ On the authority of Mr. Parkinson I notice that the supposition of having discovered a specimen of Trigonia in chalk is erroneous. This belongs only to inferior strata. ”

“ These have been in undisputed use for very many years, not because they do not require any modification to render the accordance more definite and more rigidly corresponding to the accumulation of information which has been going on since their introduction, but chiefly because chalk,—at least English chalk,—is white or of a pale grey, which when the beds are in a dry state is so nearly white, that ordinary eyes do not see the difference, and ordinary collectors do not care about it so long as they can get hold of a fine fossil. ”

“ The Chalk is everywhere very thinly peopled, except where it is thickly covered with boulder clay, and so becomes fertile, or where it is scored by drift-filled valleys, in which the small towns and villages are dotted along the high roads. The thickest covering of drift is found in the Holderness district of Yorkshire, where, from the chalk cliffs of Flamborough Head to the sandspit of Spurn Point, the whole coast is formed of boulder-clay resting on chalk. ”

“ It is true, chalk is not in so general use, as an article of diet, as cheese, except in boarding-schools; but the difference is plainly one of degree rather than of kind. We have heard of "prepared chalk." It has been whispered that gentle spinsters use it for a beautifyer. We rather incline to the belief that it is prepared for the inside rather than the outside of humanity. ”

“ If we follow the lines of fault, we may see, says M. Puggaard, along the planes of contact of the shifted beds, the marks of polishing and rubbing which the Chalk flints have undergone, as have many stones in the gravel of the drift, and some of these have also been forced into the soft Chalk. The manner in which the top of some of the arches of bent Chalk have been cut off in this and several adjoining sections, attests the great denudation which accompanied the disturbances, portions of the bent strata having been removed, probably while they were emerging from beneath the sea. ”

“ When we consider that the remains of more than three thousand distinct species of aquatic animals have been discovered among the fossils of the chalk, that the great majority of them are of such forms as are now met with only in the sea, and that there is no reason to believe that any one of them inhabited fresh water—the collateral evidence that the chalk represents an ancient sea-bottom acquires as great force as the proof derived from the nature of the chalk itself. ”

“ In tracing this vast collection of water-worn materials, we find that it forms a considerable hill behind the town, and that it joins to the side of the range of hills called the South Downs.
In Alum bay in the Isle of Wight, however, the stratum immediately next to the flinty chalk, and consequently deposited upon it, consists of a white chalk marl without flints. Its nature is sufficiently shewn by its pulverizing with the frost; and the rains wash it down, so that its situation is marked by a deep hollow. ”

“ Chalk is not rich and fertile, like manure, it is altogether poor, barren stuff: you know that, or ought to know it. Recollect the chalk cuttings and banks on the railway between Basingstoke and Winchester—how utterly barren they are. Though they have been open these thirty years, not a blade of grass, hardly a bit of moss, has grown on them, or will grow, perhaps, for centuries. ”

“ And, for reasons which you will hardly understand, men are beginning now to believe that the chalk has never ceased to be made, somewhere or other, for many thousand years, ever since the Winchester Downs were at the bottom of the sea: and that “the Globigerina-mud is not merely a chalk formation, but a continuation of the chalk formation, so that we may be said to be still living in the age of Chalk.” ”

“ We kept close to the bank of sand thrown up by the sea, behind which lay the dismantled and perishing vessels I have already mentioned. The water was much discoloured; and, like that of the Seboo, bore traces of chalk. I observed something white on the bank: pulling to the spot, I found it really to be chalk, an outlyer standing on its edge. It was harder than the common chalk of England. The flints were large masses, and there was a coating on them of crystals of carbonate of lime. ”

“ This fact is also in accordance with the hypothesis, for the river at the time of the formation of these lower beds would, in the lower part of its course, have completely cut through the Glacial deposits above the Chalk, and would have been attacking the Chalk itself. There is also an abundance of rolled chalk in the Shrub Hill beds, which seem to be of much the same age. In the valley of the Lark, the rolled chalk pebbles occur in gravels at a somewhat greater elevation. ”

“ On the farther side, that to the rising sun, the chalk with dusky sandstone underneath rears itself into a bold headland, Haven Ball, that stands precipitously against the sea, as a white, cold shoulder exposed to it. Up a hollow of this hill, a combe as it is called, a mean track ascends to the downs which overhang the sea, and extend, partly in open tracts, in part enclosed, as far as Lyme Regis.
There is no highway. ”

“ The chalk formations or “cretaceous group of beds” include strata of various mineral substances; but the white chalk which forms the cliffs of Dover and the adjoining coasts, and the downs and chalk quarries of the South of England, is the chief and most characteristic formation. Chalk, immense as are the masses in which it has been deposited, owes its origin to living actions; every particle of it once circulated in the blood or vital juices of certain species of animals, or of a few plants, that lived in the seas of the secondary period of geological time. ”

“ Chalk, as a source of lime, has always been of high importance to builders, and, until improved transport brought alien materials into its old preserves, chalk was in general use for walling in the form of roughly squared blocks. ”

“ As it is in the gravels of Chalk districts that Palæolithic implements have been chiefly, though by no means exclusively, found, let us base the hypothesis on the assumption that an extensive and almost horizontal area of Upper Chalk, covered for the most part with beds of marine clay and shingle, gradually rose from beneath the sea, to an elevation of 200 feet above its level. ”

“ As to such of these concretions (whether insulated or disposed in strata) to which no extraneous nucleus can be discovered, it is not easy to say what determined their centres of attraction. But it does not appear possible that they could have been formed by infiltration into pre-existing cavities, like the irregularly disseminated geodes of the trap rocks; since this hypothesis in the case of chalk would imply the anomaly of there having once existed, extending uniformly over many hundred square miles, as many strata of air bubbles as there are of flint alternating with the chalk ”

“ The perfect state of the surfaces of the chalk fossils proves also that this deposition proceeded from the surrounding fluid, and that it was not derived from the immediate action of any chemical agent, on the shells and other calcareous coverings of the animals living at the bottom of the sea. In the fossil animal bodies found in chalk, not the least diminution of the sharpness of their ridges or points is observable, nor is the least dulness of the delicate lines and embossments of the crusts, or of the spines of the echini, to be detected. ”

“ Thus our European Chalk formation can be recognised in many distant parts of the world, under the most different climates, where not a fragment of the mineral chalk itself can be found; namely, in North America, in equatorial South America, in Tierra del Fuego, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the peninsula of India. For at these distant points, the organic remains in certain beds present an unmistakeable degree of resemblance to those of the Chalk. It is not that the same species are met with ”