But the main agent of
destruction has been, doubtless, that same ever-gnawing sea-wash
which devours still the soft strata of the whole east coast of
England, as far as Flamborough Head; and that great scavenger, the
tide-wave, which sweeps the fallen rubbish out to sea twice in every
twenty-four hours. Wave and tide by sea, rain and river by land;
these are God's mighty mills in which He makes the old world new.
And as Longfellow says of moral things, so may we of physical:-
'Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding
small.
Though He sit, end wait with patience, with exactness grinds He all.'
The lighter and more soluble particles, during that slow but vast
destruction which is going on still to this day, have been carried
far out to sea, and deposited as ooze. The heavier and coarser have
been left along the shores, as the gravels which fill the old
estuaries of the east of England.
From these gravels we can judge of the larger animals which dwelt in
that old world. About these lost lowlands wandered herds of the
woolly mammoth.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119