Martin's Geological Memoir on Western Sussex, 41 



of this appellation, he observes, he has been " guided by a wish to 

 do as little violence as possible to inveterate habit, as well as 

 to adhere to the useful practice of deriving it from the locality in 

 which the type is best exemplified." 



The Introduction concludes with some remarks on the nature 

 and difficulties of the research which led to the composition of the 

 Memoir, and on the theory of the Weald which that research in- 

 duced the author to form. It is here stated that down to the time 

 of the memoir's being read before the Geological Society, " the 

 writer was entirely unacquainted with the existence of any attempt 

 to explain the act of denudation by any other agency than that of 

 watery flood." His own speculations upon the structure of the 

 country " had produced a conviction of some other agency be- 

 sides that of water having been called into action, and that that 

 agency had at the same moment of convulsion formed what are 

 called the Chalk-basins of London and Hampshire, and in that act 

 broken up what is now the cavity of the Weald." By an extension 

 of his reading, however, he has found that Mr. Scrope, in his work 

 on Volcanoes, published in 1825, promulgated a sketch of this theory 

 of the Weald; and that, at about the same time, Prof. Buckland, in 

 a paper read before the Geological Society in 1825, and published 

 in the following year, gave a conjectural explanation of the same 

 kind. If by these circumstances, Mr. Martin observes, " he has 

 been deprived of the satisfaction of believing himself the first to 

 promulgate this discovery, he has the pleasure of finding his opi- 

 nions backed by high authority ; and is emboldened to carry on the 

 research to a satisfactory exposition of many of the facts which 

 bear upon this theory, and are strong presumption, if they do not 

 amount to a perfect proof, of its truth." 



The Introduction is succeeded by the " District Survey," illus- 

 trated by a map extracted from the Ordnance Survey, coloured 

 geologically, and comprising that part of Sussex which extends 

 from the Adur, between Steyning and West Grinstead, on the east ; 

 and the little stream (called for convenience the Lod,) which runs 

 into the Rother by Lodsworth and Half-way-bridge, between the 

 chalk-downs at Graff ham and the foot of Blackdown, on the west. 

 The chalk, malm, gait, Shanklin-sands, wealden, diluvium and al- 

 luvium of this district, are successively described, more or less at 

 length, according to the novelty of the information to be imparted ; 

 but in all cases the descriptions are illustrated by tables of the 



applied to this. stone, has become familiar to antiquarian and topographical 

 writers on the South of England in general, and also to architects. Thus 

 this stone is emphatically denominated "Firestone" by Sir Christopher 

 Wren, as may be seen in the * Parentalia? We allude to these circum- 

 stances the more readily, as we perceive, from various remarks in his Me- 

 moir, that Mr. Martin is fully aware of the importance to the increase and 

 unity of knowledge, of preserving in scientific disquisitions those popular 

 appellations which have been from time immemorial bestowed on the ob- 

 jects of research j and of adopting in science the few well-understood deno- 

 minations of the arts. 



New Series. Vol. 4. No. 19. July 1828. G mineral 



