w that the land had no longer a ruler. Their servants
and followers, seeing their lords gone, and deeming that there was no
longer any fear of punishment, began to make spoil of the royal
chamber. Weapons, clothes, vessels, the royal bed and its furniture,
were carried off, and for a whole day the body of the Conqueror lay
well-nigh bare on the floor of the room in which he died.

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

Born in 1825, died in 1895; educated at Charing Cross
Hospital, London; assistant surgeon a naval ship in 1846-50;
professor at the Royal School of Mines and the Royal
Institute; lord rector of Aberdeen in 1874; lecturer at
Cambridge in 1883; president of the Royal Society in 1883;
published, among other works, "Man's Place in Nature" in
1868, "Lay Sermons" in 1870; "Critiques and Addresses" in
1873, "Evolution and Ethics" in 1893.

ON A PIECE OF CHALK[60]

A great chapter of the history of the world is written in the chalk.
Few passages in the history of man can be supported by such an
overwhelming mass of direct and indirect evidence as that which
testifies to the truth of the fragment of the history of the globe
which I hope to enable you to read with your own eyes to-night. Let me
add that few chapters of human history have a more profound
significance for ourselves. I weigh my words well when I assert that
the man who should know the true history of the bit of chalk which
every carpenter carries about in his breeches pocket, tho ignorant of
all other history, is likely, if he will think his knowledge out to
its ultimate results, to have a truer and therefore a better
conception of this wonderful universe, and of man's relation to it,
than the most learned student who is deep-read in the records of
humanity and ignorant of those of Nature.

[Footnote 60: From a lecture delivered to the workingmen of Norwich,
England, during the meeting of the British Association in 1868, now
included in "Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews." By permission of D.
Appleton & Co.]

The language of the chalk is not hard to learn; not nearly so hard as
Latin, if you only want to get at the broad features of the story it
has to tell: and I propose that we now set to work to spell that story
out together.

We all know that if we "burn" chalk, the result is quicklime. Chalk in
fact is a compound of carbonic-acid gas and lime; and when you make it
very hot, the carbonic acid flies aw