Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1909 — CHALK TH THE MAKING [ARTICLE]

CHALK TH THE MAKING

About the Wonderful Chemistry of Nature’s Laboratory. More than 260 years ago the famous Dutch philosopher, Leeuwinhoek, discoverer of bacteria, was dislnsectlng a shrimp. In its stomach he found certain minute shells, which were probably the first of a remarkable group of lowly organisms, now known as foraminifera, ever seen in the recent state by human eyes. And these creatures —among the simplest and lowest in the whole animal kingdom —have played a most remarkable part in the building up of the solid crust of the earth. This brings us back to Chalk and Shakespeare’s Cliff. Fov this “high and bending head” was once the bed of an ocean, deeper far than that on which it now looks down; the chalk of which it is made was once diffused through that ocean in the form of the shells of innumerable foraminifera swimming about in It. In some parts it has been shown that 90 per cent of the chalk iq made up of the calcareous shells of foraminifera similar to those now living in the ocean. Again, we stand on Beachy Head, looking down over some 600 feet of vertical chalk cliff on the restless sea, and then glancing around on the “long bare backs of the bushless Downs,” carved out of the Bame chalk. Beachy Head! Beachy, that is Beau Chef, or Beautiful Headland! So we imagine a follower of the Norman William standing on this rocky brow, breathing this exhidaratlng air, and gasing round on the wide expanse of sea and land. “Beau Chef!" he exclaims. “Beautiful Headland!” And the name transformed into Beachy has remained to this day. The unique scenery of the Downs, the long, graceful curves of the hills, with their beautiful short turf and the absence of small streams, is due to the chalk beneath, and primarily to an obscure organism which lived millions of years ago in an unknown sea. The wheels of time roll back. The hills melt away and become again the bed of an ancient ocean. Far away stretch the deep blue waters to meet the distant horizon. Huge ammonites, with beautifully sculptured coiled shells, crawl about head downward over the oozy bottom. Fish, not unlike those which now disport themselves in the ocean, swim about in shoals. And, falling gently from above, is a constant rain of minute, beautifully shaped and carved shells, once the habitations of tiny animals in the upper waters. It is chalk in the making. Sponges, with flinty skeletons, are growing in the ocean bed. They die, and their remains are covered by the rain of minute calcareous shells. In the wonderful chemistry of nature’s laboratory they become masses of flint. With a start we find ourselves sitting on the cliff and looking down on the lines of flint in the chalk. A glorious prospect of ocean spreads before us, dotted here and there with ships. Today the peaceful fleets of commerce; not so very long ago the Russian cruisers on their way to the Far East. The lowly foraminifera have built up an observing station, from which might have been seen the Spanish Armada "drummed” up the Channel by Drake. These lowly organisms, which have formed the chalk of these cliffs, are forming chalk-like deposits at the bottom of the ocean today. The ooze dredged up from the bottom of the Atlantic is found to be largely made up of foraminifera. They have also played an important part in geological history. It is theirs to integrate the waste of the land into solid rocks. Rains and wash out the limey matter from the hills and carry it in solution into the sea. It is there elaborated Into the beautiful shells of the foramanifera, which arter having served the purposes of the living animal accumulate to form limestone. Forainlnlfera has taken up a large share in the building up of the rocky crust of the earth. Even if we haye to give up the Dawn Animal —the Eozoon canadense—of the oldest there Is no class of animals which can claim a greater antiquity than the foraminifera. And in many of the great geological ages foraminifera have built up masses of solid limestone. The famous nummulitis limestone of which the pyramids are built is several thousand feet thick. It ranges from the Alps to the Carpathians, and from Egypt to the frontiers of China. —London Globe.