once a week, to debate, not of opinions but of facts; to show each what they had found, to classify and explain, to learn and to wonder together. In such a class many appliances would be possible. A microscope, for instance, or chemical apparatus, might belong to the society, which each individual by himself would not be able to afford; while as for books—books on these subjects are now published at a marvellous cheapness, which puts them within the reach of every one, and of an excellence which twenty years ago was impossible. Any working man in this town might now, especially in a class, consult scientific books, for which I, as a lad, twenty years ago, was sighing in vain; nay, many of which, twenty years ago, the richest nobleman could not have purchased; for the simple reason, that, dear or cheap, they did not exist. Such classes, too, would be the easiest, cheapest, and pleasantest way of establishing what ought to exist, I think, in connexion with every institution like this, namely, a museum. the young men were really ready and willing to collect objects of interest, I doubt not that public-spirited men would be found, who would undertake the expense of mounting them in a museum. And you cannot imagine, I assure you, how large and how interesting a museum might be formed of the natural curiosities of a neighbourhood like this, I may say, indeed, of any neighbourhood or of any parish: but your museum need not be confined to the neighbourhood. Societies

If

now exist in every part of England, who will be happy to exchange their duplicates for yours. As your collection increased in importance, old members abroad would gladly contribute foreign curiosities to your stock. Neighbouring gentlemen would send you valuable objects which had been lumbering their houses, uncared for, because they stood alone, and formed no

part of a collection; and I, for one, would be happy to add something from the fauna and flora of those moorlands, where I have so long enjoyed the wonders of nature; never, I can honestly say, alone; because when man was not with me, I had companions in every bee, and flower, and pebble; and never idle, because I could not pass a swamp, or a tuft of heather, without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher here and there a line or two, and yet found them more interesting than all the books, save one, which were ever written upon earth.

THOUGHTS IN A GRAVEL-PIT.*

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, we may of course,

think of anything which we choose in a gravel-pit, as we may anywhere else. Thought is free at least so we fancy.

But the most right sort of thought, after all, is thought about what lies nearest us; not always, but surely once in a way, that we may understand something of every-day objects. And therefore it may be well worth our while to go once into a gravel-pit, and think about it, till one has learnt what a gravelpit is.

Learnt what a gravel-pit is?

Everybody knows.

If it be so, everybody knows more than I know. We all know a gravel-pit when we see one: but we do not all know what we see. I do not know. I know a little; a few scraps of fact about these pits round here, though about no others. Were I to go into a pit a hundred miles, even fifty miles off, I could tell you nothing certain about it; perhaps might make a dozen mistakes. But what I know, with tolerable certainty, about the pits round here, I wish to tell you to-night.

But why? You do not need, one in ten of you, to know anything about gravel, unless you be highway surveyor, or have a garden walk to make; and then

* A lecture delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, Odiham, 1857.

some one will easily tell you where the best gravel is to be got, at so much a load.

Very true; but you come here to-night to instruct yourselves; that is, to learn, if you can, something more about the world you live in; something more about God who made the world.

And you come here to educate yourselves; to educe and bring out your own powers of perceiving, judging, reasoning; to improve yourselves in the art of all arts, which is, the art of learning. That is mental education.

Now if a gravel-pit will teach you a little about these things; you will surely call it a rich gravel-pit. If it helps you to wisdom, which is worth more than gold; which is the only way to get gold wisely, and spend it wisely; then we will call our pit no more a gravel-pit, but a wisdom-pit, a mine of wisdom.

Let us go out, then, in fancy (for it is too cold to go out in person) to Hook Common, scramble down into the first gravel-pit we come to, and see what we

can see.

The first thing we see is a quantity of stones, more or less rounded, lying in gravel and poor clay.

Well-what do those stones tell us?

These stones, as I told you when I addressed you last, are ancient and venerable worthies. They have seen a great deal in their time. They have had a great deal of knocking about, and have stood it manfully. They have stood the knocking about of three worlds already; and have done their duty therein; and they are ready (if you choose to mend the road with them) to stand the knocking about of this fourth world, and being most excellent gravel, to do their duty in this world likewise: which is more, I fear, than either you or I can say for ourselves.

Three worlds?

Yes.

Standing there in the gravel-pit, I see three old worlds, in each of which these stones played their part; and this world of man for the fourth, and the best of all-for man, if not for the stones. I speak sober truth. Let me explain it step by step.

You know the chalk-hills to the south; and the sands of Crooksbury and the Hind Head beyond them. There is one world.

You know the clays and sands of Hook and Newnham, Dogmersfield and Shapley Heath, and all the country to the north as far as Reading. There is a second world.

You know the gravel-pit itself; and all the upper soils and gravels, which are spread over the length and breadth of the country to the north. There is a third world.

Let us take them one by one.
First, the chalk.

:

The chalk-hills rise much higher than the surrounding country but you must not therefore suppose that they were made after it, and laid on the top of it. That guess would be true, if you went south-east from here toward the Hind Head. The chalk lies on the top of the sands of Crooksbury Hill, and the clays of Holt Forest but it dips underneath the sands of Shapley Heath, and the clays of Dogmersfield, and reappears from underneath them again at Reading.

Thus you at Odiham stand on the edge of a chalk basin; of what was once a sea, or estuary, with shores of chalk, which begins at the foot of the High Clere Hills, and runs eastward, widening as it goes, past London, into the Eastern Sea. Everywhere under this great basin is the floor of chalk, covered with clays and sands, which, for certain reasons, are called by geologists Tertiary strata.

VOL. II.

BB