There is great reason in that; but we have cause now to be certain
that they did not come from Wales. That they are not pieces of a
rock older than the chalk, but much younger; that they were very
probably formed close to where they now lie.
Now--how do we know that?
If you are not tired with all this close reasoning, I will tell
you.--If you are, say so: but as I said at first, I want to show
you what steady and sharp head-work this same geology requires, even
in the nearest gravel-pit.
Well, then. I do not think our gravel-pit will tell us what we
want: but I know one which will.
You have all heard of Lady Grenville's lovely place, Dropmore,
beyond Maidenhead; where the taste of that good and great man, the
late Lord Grenville, converted into a paradise of landscape-
gardening art a barren common, full of clay and gravel-pits. Lord
Grenville wanted stones for rockwork; in those pits he found some
blocks, of the same substance as those of Stonehenge or Pirbright.
And they contain the answer. The upper surface of most of them is
the usual clear sugar-sandstone: but the under surface of many has
round pebbles imbedded in it, looking just like plums in a pudding;
the smaller above and the larger below, as if they had sunk slowly
through the fluid sand, before the whole mass froze, as it were,
suddenly together.
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