Limestone Quarries at Pounceford. 597 



Art. IV. Some Account of the Limestone Quarries and Petrifying 

 Spring at Pounceford, in Sussex; with Preliminary Remarks 

 on the Wealden Rocks. By William Perceval Hunter, Esq., 

 Member of the Geological Society of France. 



" As time never fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais nor 

 the Nile can have flowed for ever : the places where they rise were once 

 dry, and there is a limit to their operations, but there is none to time. So 

 also of all other rivers ; they spring up and they perish ; and the sea also 

 continually deserts some lands and invades others. The same tracts, there- 

 fore, of the earth, are not some always sea, and others always continents, 

 but every thing changes in the course of time." — Aristotle, Meteor., 

 lib. ii. cap. 16. 



" In the interior of a country so highly cultivated as Sussex," 

 observes Dr. Fitton, in his Geological Sketch of the Vicinity of 

 Hastings, " it is very difficult to obtain a sight of a stratum 

 of clay, especially in the lower districts ; and it is only by 

 availing ourselves of accidental openings, during the cutting 

 of drains, or of roads, or in sinking wells, that the succession 

 and contents of the bed can be ascertained." (p. 30.) 



The sections afforded by such occasions are rare ; and, 

 except in the case of wells, which can only be examined while 

 being dug, seldom descend very far below the surface : when, 

 therefore, we meet with sections nearly 1 00 ft. deep, such as 

 those afforded by the vertical shafts sunk for extracting the 

 shelly bivalve limestone at Pounceford, no opportunity should 

 be omitted of examining and measuring the strata : on this 

 account, therefore, I have drawn up the following notes ; 

 premising that, however defective they may be, they will, at 

 all events, have accuracy to recommend them, as I made my 

 measurements with great care, several times over, at different 

 places, and collected specimens of all the strata. These notes 

 I was the more induced to put together from perceiving that 

 Mantell, though he mentions the spring (Geology of South- 

 East of England, p. 22.), says very little about these beds, 

 which appear to have been unknown to Dr. Fitton, who, speak- 

 ing of the general structure of the country surrounding Bright- 

 ling, says, " As there are here no coal beds to reward the 

 labour and expense of accurate levelling and surveying, it is 

 impossible, at present, to give a correct section of the country" 

 (Geol. Sketch of Hastings, p. 55.) 



Before entering on the description of these beds, a short 

 outline of the geological phenomena presented by the country 

 may, perhaps, be interesting and useful to those who have 

 hitherto paid but little attention to the subject. 



The Wealden beds, calculated to be, in some parts, no less 

 than 2000ft. thick, comprising, 1. Weald clay; 2. Hastings 



