Note 105 — Chapter XI · SECONDARY ROCKS. No. 5. The Chalk. THE CRETACEOUS SYSTEM.

Since writing the above we have met with the following, which proves that this origin of chalk is not so fabulous as some think it:—“Lieut. Nelson, Mr. Dance, and others have shown, that the waste and débris derived from coral reefs produces a substance exactly resembling chalk. I can corroborate this assertion from my own observations, both on some very white chalky limestones in Java and the neighbouring islands, which I believe to be nothing else than raised fringing coral reefs, and on the substance brought up by the lead over some hundreds of miles in the Indian Archipelago, and along the north-east coast of Australia, and the coral sea of Flinders,”—Juke’s Physical Geology, p. 263.