604 Limestone Quarries and Petrifying Spring 



green-sand, gault, and chalk formation ; the latter, especially, 

 having the character of a deposit formed only in deep water. 

 There does not appear any reason for introducing the sea into 

 the Weald valley, as Lyell does, for the purpose of effecting 

 its denudation, and the removal of the materials of its ancient 

 strata. The agency of rivers and rains, acting through an in- 

 definite time, may have alone accomplished this ; and, since 

 no traces of marine deposits of the Eocene, or any later age, 

 are met with, throughout the whole basin, we must hesitate 

 to believe that the sea covered it, during any part of the ter- 

 tiary period." {Quarterly Review, April, 1835.) 



To return to the section of the quarries to which this paper 

 more particularly refers. The tract of country occupied by 

 these beds extends from Totten Field to Vine Hall, about 

 9 miles in length, and half a mile, on an average, in width.* 

 The general aspect of the country surrounding Pounceford, 

 situated 18 miles from Hastings, 3 from Burwash, and 26 

 from Brighton Downs, is highly undulating, affording nume- 

 rous picturesque glens and deeply cut valleys, and mostly richly 

 wooded ; with a very poor sandy clay soil, which, however, 

 being very well cultivated, produces good wheat and very fair 

 hops. The limestone, in many parts, a complete aggregate of 

 shells, which is excavated for burning, is found in layers at 

 about 60 ft. from the surface. The following is an exact mea- 

 surement of the beds at the most southern shaft sunk for ex- 

 tracting the stone (the sections at the other two vertical shafts 

 differ but little from it), from the surface to the first layer of 

 the blue bivalve limestone, which is worked under ground, and 

 consequently interferes but little with the meadow land above, 

 on which cows and sheep are turned out to feed. The names 

 marked with inverted commas are those given by the work- 

 men, which being, as is generally the case, very vague and 

 indefinite, I have added a brief description of each stratum. 



Section at vertical Shaft to the South of Pounceford Farm, 



ft. in. 



1. Soil and al- "I Consisting of mull, sand, clay, and calciferous 

 luvium grit, in various proportions - 9 



2. * Ragged bole ' a hard shelly grit, with argillaceous ironstone 



and sand rock - - - 9 



3. * True bole ' a compact shelly limestone, occasionally in 



veins ; furnishing excellent lime, though not 

 worked for that purpose ; at places, how- 

 ever, earthy and yielding - - 10 



* On the authority of the head quarryman, an amateur, and a very in- 

 telligent man in his way. 



