--Conceive? It is past
conception. I will but give you two hints as to its probable size.
The chalk to the eastward, between here and Farnham, is a far
narrower and shallower band than anywhere else in England. Its
narrowest point is, I believe, beneath the bishop's palace at
Farnham, where it may be a hundred feet thick, instead of several
hundred, as it usually is in other parts of England. The cause of
this is, that the whole of the upper chalk has been washed away, to
form the gravel-beds to the north and east of us.
Again. Some of you may have been on the Hind Head or on Leith Hill,
and have looked southward over the glorious prospect of the rich
Weald, spread out five hundred feet below--a sight to make an
Englishman proud of his native land. Now, the mass of chalk which
has been carried away began behind you, at the Hogsback, and the
line of chalk-hills which runs to Boxhill, and stretched hundreds of
feet above your head as you stand on Hind Head or Leith Hill, right
over the old Weald of Sussex to the chalk of the South Downs. And
out of the scourings of that vast mass of chalk was our gravel-pit
made.
Of that, and also of the Hind Head sands below it.
For you will find a great deal of sharp sand in our gravel-pits,
which has not, I believe, come from the grinding of chalk flints;
for if it had been ground, it would not be the sharp sand it is; the
particles would be rounded off at the edges.
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