The Rev. Cannon Faber read a paper on “A piece of chalk.”

The subject was treated in the masterly manner so characteristic of the author, and furnished an excellent epitome of the origin, geological formation, and chemical composition of chalk.

Researches and discoveries of recent years, especially those resulting from the soundings made in connection with what may be termed the survey of the bed of the ocean previous to laying the first Atlantic cable, and also during the Challenger expedition, have thrown a great flood of light upon the origin of chalk. The ooze or mud brought up from the bottom of the Atlantic by sounding lines was found to consist in great measure of the shells of tiny organisms called Foraminiferoe.

Those which were perfect were chiefly of a more or less rounded shape. And it was found that these or their broken remains constituted about 80 per cent, of the dried mud. The chemical composition of this mud is identical with that of chalk, that is it consists of carbonate of lime. A microscopical examination of chalk proper revealed a similar structure, although it was, of course, more difficult to find shells of the low-typed animals which by their united efforts during countless years built it up with their imperishable skeletons.

Still the shells present in chalk, and anyone with a decent microscope could easily detect them by scaping a piece of natural chalk into water, washing away the finer particles, and examining the sand like deposit which is left.

A comparison of the two types served to prove that the old chalk cliffs, which gave the name of Albion to our island home, were formed at the bottom of the sea, and  have been raised by gradual upheaval to their present position, and that this formation was brought about by tiny animals of the same family as those which were now engaged in similar work on the bed of the Atlantic.

The source of the carbonate of lime was the ocean, which holds a considerable amount in solution. The animals, in building their shells, abstracted the carbonate of lime from the water around them. This chalk formation, although widely distributed throughout the world, attained probably its greatest and most perfect development in the south and south-west of England, and occurred there in beds of immense thickness. The chalk cliffs of the southern coast were well known. The fossils of the chalk, other than Foraminiferoe were too numerous to notice in a short abstract.

[The above report was extracted from a paper cutting pasted into the Minute Book 1886-1894, dated 30 November 1887]