262 



MartirCs Geological Memoir^ and 



the difference, that the sands immediately below the chalk are 

 not so prominent, and the middle of the clay country has a 

 greater intermixture of sandy lands, not destitute of pictu- 

 resque beauty, but of inferior agricultural character. 



127 



" The space thus comprised has otherwise, in geological 

 language, got the name of the ' Weald Denudation ; * because 

 there is every reason to believe, from the uniformity of the 

 structure of the valley, and the regularity and peculiar dispo- 

 sition of its chalk boundaries, that the chalk itself, in all its 

 subordinate strata, with perhaps some others often found in- 

 cumbent upon the chalk, have been once continued over it 

 from side to side (all uniting to form a high table-land, but a 

 small part of a greater expansion of the same materials), and 

 of which it has since been stripped or denuded. 



South Down. 128 Weald Valley^ Surrey HUls. 



ChcUk. 



Gay Country. ^- - -- sandy, 



" To explain better what is understood by this denud- 

 ation, or stripping off of the chalk strata, let the reader ima- 

 gine a plain of chalk, covered or not with other lands of a 

 kindred nature, extended over a part of France, and continued 

 without interruption to the north of England. Let him then 

 suppose, that, looking from above the Alton Hills, he sees the 

 chalk, with its accompanying strata, rent asunder ; part sink- 

 ing southward, to give a bed to the English Channel, from the 

 race of Portland to Beachy-Head (leaving some fractured por- 

 tions standing, to tell the story of convulsions), part northward, 



