Meanwhile, be content with him: remember that though he cannot see through a milestone yet, he can see farther into one than his neighbours.

Indeed his neighbours cannot see into a milestone at all, but only see the outside of it, and know things only by rote, like parrots, without understanding what they mean and how they are made.
So now remember that chalk is carbonate of lime, and that it is made up of three things, calcium, oxygen, and carbon; and that therefore its mark is CaCO( 3), in Analysis's language, which I hope you will be able to read some day.
But how is it that Analysis and Synthesis cannot take all this chalk to pieces, and put it together again?
Look here; what is that in the chalk?
Oh! a shepherd's crown, such as we often find in the gravel, only fresh and white.
Well; you know what that was once.

I have often told you:--a live sea- egg, covered with prickles, which crawls at the bottom of the sea.
Well, I am sure that Master Synthesis could not put that together again: and equally sure that Master Analysis might spend ages in taking it to pieces, before he found out how it was made.

And--we are lucky to-day, for this lower chalk to the south has very few fossils in it--here is something else which is not mere carbonate of lime.

Look at it.
A little cockle, something like a wrinkled hazel-nut.
No; that is no cockle.