the different pieces of
gravel into each other; an indentation which resembles perfectly that
junction of the different bones of the _cranium_, called sutures, and
which must have necessarily required a mixture of those bodies while in
a soft or fluid state.

This appearance of indentation is by no means singular, or limited to
one particular specimen. I have several specimens of different marbles,
in which fine examples of this species of mixture may be perceived. But
in this particular case of the Spanish pudding-stone, where the mutual
indentation is made between two pieces of hard stone, worn round by
attrition, the softening or fusion of these two bodies is not simply
rendered probable, but demonstrated.

Having thus proved, that those strata had been consolidated by simple
fusion, as proposed, we now proceed to show, that this mineral operation
had been not only general, as being found in all the regions of the
globe, but universal, in consolidating our earth in all the various
degrees, from loose and incoherent shells and sand, to the most solid
bodies of the siliceous and calcareous substances.

To exemplify this in the various collections and mixtures of sands,
gravels, shells, and corals, were endless and superfluous. I shall only
take, for an example, one simple homogeneous body, in order to exhibit
it in the various degrees of consolidation, from the state of simple
incoherent earth to that of the most solid marble. It must be evident
that this is chalk; naturally a soft calcareous earth, but which may be
also found consolidated in every different degree.

Through the middle of the Isle of Wight, there runs a ridge of hills of
indurated chalk. This ridge runs from the Isle of Wight directly west
into Dorsetshire, and goes by Corscastle towards Dorchester, perhaps
beyond that place. The sea has broke through this ridge at the west
end of the Isle of Wight, where columns of the indurated chalk remain,
called the Needles; the same appearance being found upon the opposite
shore in Dorsetshire.

In this field of chalk, we find every gradation of that soft earthy
substance to the most consolidated body of this indurated ridge, which
is not solid marble, but which has lost its chalky property, and has
acquired a kind of stony hardness.

We want only further to see this cretaceous substance in its most
indurated and consolidated state; and this we have in the north of
Ireland, not far from the Giants Causewa