flagration; the anchorage, the walls and windows of Calais, and the sea shining red as far as eye could reach, as if the ocean itself was burning. Among the dangers which they might have to encounter, English fireworks had been especially dreaded by the Spaniards. Fire ships -a fit device of heretics-had worked havoc among the Spanish troops, when the bridge was blown up at Antwerp.11 They imagined that similar infernal machines were approaching the Armada. A capable commander would have sent a few launches to grapple the burning hulks, which of course were now deserted, and tow them out of harm's way. Spanish sailors were not cowards, and would not have flinched from duty because it might be dangerous; but the Duke and Diego Florez12 lost their heads again. A signal gun from the San Martin ordered the whole fleet to slip their cables and stand out to sea. whole fleet might be lost on the banks. Towards the land the look of things was not more encouraging. One accident only had happened the night before. The Capitana galleass, with Don Hugo de Monçada and eight hundred men on board, had fouled her helm in a cable in getting under way and had become unmanageable. The galley slaves disobeyed orders, or else Don Hugo was as incompetent as his commander-in-chief. The galleass had gone on the sands, and as the tide ebbed had fallen over on her side. Howard, seeing her condition, had followed her in the Ark with four or five other of the Queen's ships, and was furiously attacking her with his boats, careless of neutrality laws. Howard's theory was, as he said, to pluck the feathers one by one from the Spaniard's wing, and here was a feather worth picking up. The galleass was the most splendid vessel of her kind afloat, Don Hugo one of the greatest of Spanish grandees. Orders given in panic are doubly unwise, for they spread the terror in which they originate. The danger from the fire ships was chiefly from Howard was making a double mistake. the effect on the imagination, for they appear | took the galleass at last after three hours' fightto have drifted by and done no real injury. ing. Don Hugo was killed by a musket ball. And it speaks well for the seamanship and cour- The vessel was plundered and Howard's men age of the Spaniards that they were able, crowded together as they were, at midnight, and in sudden alarm, to set their canvas and clear out without running into one another. They buoyed their cables, expecting to return for them at daylight, and with only a single accident, to be mentioned directly, they executed successfully a really difficult manœuvre. The took possession, meaning to carry her away when the tide rose. The French authorities ordered him off, threatening to fire upon him; and after wasting the forenoon, he was obliged at last to leave her where she lay. Worse than this, he had lost three precious hours, and had lost along with them, in the opinion of the Prirce of Parma, the honours of the great day. Drake and Hawkins knew better than to The Duke was delighted with himself. fire ships burned harmlessly out. He had baf-waste time plucking single feathers. The fire fled the inventions of the endemoniada gente. ships had been more effective than they could He brought up a league outside the harbour, have dared to hope. The enemy was broken and supposed that the whole Armada had done up. The Duke was shorn of half his strength, the same. Unluckily for himself, he found it and the Lord had delivered him into their hand. at daylight divided into two bodies. The San He had got under way, still signalling wildly, Martin with forty of the best appointed of the and uncertain in which direction to turn. His galleons were riding together at their anchors. uncertainties were ended for him by seeing The rest, two-thirds of the whole, having no Drake bear down upon him with the whole Engsecond anchors ready, and inexperienced in lish fleet, save those which were loitering about Channel tides and currents, had been lying to. the galleass. The English had now the advanThe west wind was blowing up. Without see-tage of numbers. The superiority of their guns ing where they were going they had drifted to he knew already, and their greater speed alleeward and were two leagues off, towards lowed him no hope to escape a battle. Forty Gravelines, dangerously near the shore. The Duke was too ignorant to realize the full peril of his situation. He signalled to them to return and join him. As the wind and tide stood it was impossible. He proposed to follow them. The pilots told him that if he did the ships alone were left to him to defend the banner of the crusade and the honour of Castile; but those forty were the largest and most powerfully armed and manned that he had, and on board them were Oquendo, De Leyva, Recalde, Bretandona, the best officers in the Spanish navy next to the lost Don Pedro.1 1 Taken captive by Drake in the first action at Plymouth. were themselves helpless butts to the English guns. And it is noticeable and supremely creditable to them that not a single galleon struck her colours. One of them, after a long duel with an Englishman, was on the point of sinking. An English officer, admiring the courage which the Spaniards had shown, ran out upon his bowsprit, told them that they had done all which became men, and urged them to surrender and save their lives. For answer they cursed the English as cowards and chickens because they refused to close. The officer was shot. His fall brought a last broadside on them, which finished the work. They went down, and the water closed over them. Rather death to the soldiers of the Cross than surrender to a heretic. It was now or never for England. The scene | But all round it was but a repetition of the of the action which was to decide the future of same scene. The Spanish shot flew high, as beEurope was between Calais and Dunkirk, a few fore, above the low English hulls, and they miles off shore, and within sight of Parma's camp. There was no more manoeuvring for the weather-gage, no more fighting at long range. Drake dashed straight upon his prey as the falcon stoops upon its quarry. A chance had fallen to him which might never return; not for the vain distinction of carrying prizes into English ports, not for the ray of honour which would fall on him if he could carry off the sacred banner itself and hang it in the Abbey at Westminster, but a chance so to handle the Armada that it should never be seen again in English waters, and deal such a blow on Philip that the Spanish Empire should reel with it. The English ships had the same superiority over the galleons which steamers have now over sailing vessels. They had twice the speed; they could lie two points nearer to the wind. The deadly hail rained on. In some ships Sweeping around them at cable's length, crowd- blood was seen streaming out of the scupper ing them in one upon the other, yet never once holes. Yet there was no yielding; all ranks giving them a chance to grapple, they hurled showed equal heroism. The priests went up and in their cataracts of round shot. Short as was down in the midst of the carnage, holding the the powder supply, there was no sparing it that crucifix before the eyes of the dying. At midmorning. The hours went on, and still the day Howard came up to claim a second share battle raged, if battle it could be called where in a victory which was no longer doubtful. the blows were all dealt on one side and the Towards the afternoon the Spanish fire slacksuffering was all on the other. Never on sea ened. Their powder was gone, and they could or land did the Spaniards show themselves wor- make no return to the cannonade which was thier of their great name than on that day. still overwhelming them. They admitted freely But from the first they could do nothing. It afterwards that if the attack had been conwas said afterwards in Spain that the Duke tinued but two hours more they must all have showed the white feather, that he charged his struck or gone ashore. But the English magapilot to keep him out of harm's way, that he zines were empty also; the last cartridge was shut himself up in his cabin, buried in wool- shot away, and the battle ended from mere packs, and so on. The Duke had faults enough, inability to keep it up. It had been fought on but poltroonery was not one of them. He, both sides with peculiar determination. In the who till he entered the English Channel had English there was the accumulated resentment never been in action on sea or land, found him- of thirty years of menace to their country and self, as he said, in the midst of the most furious their creed, with the enemy in tangible shape engagement recorded in the history of the at last to be caught and grappled with; in the world. As to being out of harm's way, the Spanish, the sense that if their cause had not standard at his masthead drew the hottest of brought them the help they looked for from the fire upon him. The San Martin's timbers above, the honour and faith of Castile should were of oak and a foot thick, but the shot, he not suffer in their hands. said, went through them enough to shatter a rock. Her deck was a slaughterhouse; half his company were killed or wounded, and no more would have been heard or seen of the San Martin or her commander had not Oquendo and De Leyva pushed in to the rescue and enabled him to creep away under their cover. He himself saw nothing more of the action after this. The smoke, he said, was so thick that he could make out nothing, even from his masthead. It was over. The English drew off, regretting that their thrifty mistress had limited their means of fighting for her, and so obliged them to leave their work half done. When the cannon ceased the wind rose, the smoke rolled away, and in the level light of the sunset they could see the results of the action. A galleon in Recalde's squadron was sinking with all hands. The San Philip and the San Matteo were drifting dismasted towards the afterwards Dutch coast, where they were rence was as heedless as St. Dominic.3 The San Martin had but six fathoms under her. Those nearer to the land signalled five, and right before them they could see the brown foam of the breakers curling over the sands, while on their weather-beam, a mile distant and clinging to them like the shadow of death, were the English ships which had pursued them from Plymouth like the dogs of the Furies. The Spanish sailors and soldiers had been without food since the evening when they anchored at Calais. All Sunday they had been at work, In this condition Drake left them for the no rest allowed them to eat. On the Sunday night, not to rest, but from any quarter to col-night they had been stirred out of their sleep lect, if he could, more food and powder. The by the fire ships. Monday they had been fightsnake had been scotched, but not killed.1 More ing, and Monday night committing their dead than half the great fleet were far away, unto the sea. Now they seemed advancing ditouched by shot, perhaps able to fight a second rectly upon inevitable destruction. As the battle if they recovered heart. To follow, to wind stood there was still room for them to drive them on the banks if the wind held, or wear and thus escape the banks, but they would into the North Sea, anywhere so that he left then have to face the enemy, who seemed only them no chance of joining hands with Parma refraining from attacking them because while again, and to use the time before they had they continued on their present course the rallied from his blows, that was the present winds and waves would finish the work without necessity. His own poor fellows were famished help from man. Recalde, De Leyva, Oquendo, and in rags; but neither he nor they had leisure and other officers were sent for to the San to think of themselves. There was but one Martin to consult. Oquendo came last. 'Ah, thought in the whole of them, to be again in Señor Oquendo,' said the Duke as the heroic chase of the flying foe. Howard was resolute Biscayan stepped on board, 'que haremos?' as Drake. All that was possible was swiftly (what shall we do?) 'Let your Excellency bid done. Seymour and the Thames squadron were load the guns again,' was Oquendo's gallant to stay in the straits and watch Parma. From answer. It could not be. De Leyva himself every obtainable source food and powder were said that the men would not fight the English collected for the rest-far short in both ways again. Florez advised surrender. The Duke of what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, wavered. It was said that a boat was actually 'we were resolved to put on a brag and go on lowered to go off to Howard and make terms, as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the and that Oquendo swore that if the boat left admiral and he were again off on the chase. the San Martin on such an errand he would fling Florez into the sea. Oquendo's advice would have, perhaps, been the safest if the Duke could have taken it. There were still seventy ships in the Armada little hurt. The English were 'bragging,' as Drake said, and in no condition themselves for another serious engagement. But the temper of the entire fleet made a courageous course impossible. There was but one Oquendo. Discipline was gone. The soldiers in their desperation had taken the command out of the hands of the seamen. Officers and men alike abandoned hope, and, with no human prospect of salvation left to them, they flung themselves on their knees upon the decks and prayed the Almighty to have pity on them. But two weeks were gone since they had knelt The brag was unneeded. What man could do had been done, and the rest was left to the elements. Never again could Spanish seamen be brought to face the English guns with Medina Sidonia to lead them. They had a fool at their head. The Invisible Powers in whom they had been taught to trust had deserted them. Their confidence was gone and their spirit broken. Drearily the morning broke on the Duke and his consorts the day after the battle. The Armada had collected in the night. The nor'-wester had freshened to a gale, and they were labouring heavily along, making fatal leeway towards the shoals. It was St. Lawrence's Day, Philip's patron saint, whose shoulder-bone he had lately added to the treasures of the Escurial;2 but St. Law-on those same decks on the first sight of the 1 Macbeth, III, ii, 13. 2 The palace of Philip II. 3 Referring to a disastrous engagement five days before, on St. Dominic's Day, Aug. 4. English shore to thank Him for having brought them so far on an enterprise so glorious. Two weeks; and what weeks! Wrecked, torn by cannon shot, ten thousand of them dead or dying for this was the estimated loss by battle the survivors could now but pray to be delivered from a miserable death by the elements. In cyclones the wind often changes suddenly back from northwest to west, from west to south. At that moment, as if in an swer to their petition, one of these sudden shifts of wind saved them from the immediate peril. The gale backed round to S.S.W., and ceased to press them on the shoals. They could case their sheets, draw off into open water, and steer a course up the middle of the North Sea. So only that they went north, Drake was content to leave them unmolested. Once away into the high latitudes they might go where they would. Neither Howard nor he, in the low state of their own magazines, desired any unnecessary fighting. If the Armada turned back they must close with it. If it held its present course they must follow it till they could be assured it would communicate no more for that summer with the Prince of Parma. Drake thought they would perhaps make for the Baltic or some port in Norway. They would meet no hospitable reception from either Swedes or Danes, but they would probably try. One only imminent danger remained to be provided against. If they turned into the Forth, it was still possible for the Spaniards to redeem their defeat, and even yet shake Elizabeth's throne. Among the many plans which had been formed for the invasion of England, a landing in Scotland had long been the favourite. Guise had always preferred Scotland when it was intended that Guise should be the leader. Santa Cruz had been in close correspondence with Guise on this very subject, and many officers in the Armada must have been acquainted with Santa Cruz's views. The Scotch Catholic nobles were still savage at Mary Stuart's execution, and had the Armada anchored in Leith Roads with twenty thousand men, half a million ducats, and a Santa Cruz at its head, it might have kindled a blaze at that moment from John o'Groat's Lands to the Border. But no such purpose occurred to the Duke of Medina Sidonia. He probably knew nothing at all of Scotland or its parties. Among the many deficiencies which he had pleaded to Philip as unfitting him for the command, he had said that Santa Cruz had acquaintances 4 On the Firth of Forth, 5 The northwestern exnear Edinburgh. tremity of Scotland. among the English and Scotch peers. He had himself none. The small information which he had of anything did not go beyond his orange gardens and his tunny fishing. His chief merit was that he was conscious of his incapacity; and, detesting a service into which he had been fooled by a hysterical nun,* his only anxiety was to carry home the still considerable fleet which had been trusted to him without further loss. Beyond Scotland and the Scotch isles there was the open ocean, and in the open ocean there were no sandbanks and no English guns. Thus, with all sail set, he went on before the wind. Drake and Howard attended him till they had seen him past the Forth, and knew then that there was no more to fear. It was time to see to the wants of their own poor fellows, who had endured so patiently and fought so magnificently. On the 13th day of August they saw the last of the Armada, turned back, and made their way to the Thames.† THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY ON A PIECE OF CHALK.‡ If a well were to be sunk at our feet in the midst of the city of Norwich, the diggers would very soon find themselves at work in that white substance, almost too soft to be called rock, with which we are all familiar as "chalk.'' Not only here, but over the whole county of Norfolk, the well-sinker might carry his shaft down many hundred feet without coming to the end of the chalk; and, on the sea-coast, where the waves have pared away the face of the land which breasts them, the scarped faces of the high cliffs are often wholly formed of the same material. Northward, the chalk may be followed as far as Yorkshire; on the south *A nun at Lisbon had told the wavering Duke that "Our Lady had sent her to promise him success." The remainder of the narrative is the story of the disasters that attended the Spanish in their voyage around Scotland and Ireland. Many died from exposure, scanty food, and poisonous water: many were wrecked; even of those who reached Spain alive, few ever rallied from the experience. A lecture delivered to the working men of Norwich, England, and printed in Macmillan's Magazine, 1868; now in Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews. Some changes have here been made in paragraphing and punctuation. For clearness of exposition Huxley has few or no superiors, but the system of paragraphing employed in his works as they are ordinarily printed not infrequently has an obscuring effect. coast it appears abruptly in the picturesque the wall-sided cliffs, many hundred feet high, western bays of Doset, and breaks into the Needles1 of the Isle of Wight; while on the shores of Kent it supplies that long line of white cliffs to which England owes her name of Albion.2 with vast needles and pinnacles standing out in the sea, sharp and solitary enough to serve as perches for the wary cormorant, confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur upon the chalk headlands. And in the East; chalk has its share in the formation of some of the most venerable of mountain ranges, such as the Leb Were the thin soil which covers it all washed away, a curved band of white chalk, here broader and there narrower, might be followed diag-anon. onally across England from Lulworth in Dorset to Flamborough Head in Yorkshire-a distance of over two hundred and eighty miles as the crow flies. From this band to the North Sea, on the east, and the Channel, on the south, the chalk is largely hidden by other deposits; but, except in the Weald of Kent and Sussex, it enters into the very foundation of all the south-eastern counties. What is this wide-spread component of the surface of the earth? and whence did it come? You may think this no very hopeful inquiry. You may not unnaturally suppose that the attempt to solve such problems as these can lead to no result, save that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, incapable of refutation and of verification. If such were really the case, I should have selected some other sub But in truth, after much deliberation, I have been unable to think of any topic which would so well enable me to lead you to see how solid is the foundation upon which some of the most startling conclusions of physical science rest. A great chapter in the history of the world is written in the chalk. Few passages in the his tory 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, tonight. Attaining, as it does in some places, a thick-ject than a "piece of chalk" for my discourse. ness of more than a thousand feet, the English chalk must be admitted to be a mass of considerable magnitude. Nevertheless, it covers but an insignificant portion of the whole area occupied by the chalk formation of the globe, which has precisely the same general characters as ours, and is found in detached parches, some less and others more extensive than the English. Chalk occurs in northwest Ireland; it stretches over a large part of France, the chalk which underlies Paris being, in fact, a continuation of that of the London basin; runs through Denmark and Central Europe, and extends southward to North Africa; while eastward, it appears in the Crimea and in Syria, and may be traced as far as the shores of the Sea of Aral, in Central Asia. If all the points at which true chalk occurs were circumscribed, they would lie within an irregular oval about three thousand miles in long diameter, the area of which would be as great as that of Europe, and would many times exceed that of the largest existing inland sea-the Mediterranean. Thus the chalk is no unimportant element in the masonry of the earth's crust, and it impresses a peculiar stamp, varying with the conditions to which it is exposed, on the scenery of the districts in which it occurs. The undulating downs and rounded coombs, covered with sweet-grassed turf, of our inland chalk country, have a peacefully domestic and mutton-suggesting prettiness, but can hardly be called either grand or beautiful. But on our southern coasts, 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, though 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. 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. . . . [In the intervening portion of his address Huxley sets forth the following facts: First. Chemically, chalk consists of carbonic acid and quicklime. Under the microscope it is seen to be made up of granules in which are imbedded numerous calcareous skeletons known as Globigerinæ. Second. The bed of the North Atlantic, be |