[ 366 ] 



LV. On the Anticlinal Line of tlie London and Hampshire Basins. 



By P. J. Martin, Esq., F,G,S. 



[Continued from p. 288.] 



I HASTEN now to a review of the next in order, namely, the 

 Subcretaceoits Zone. Immediately that the lower greensand 

 emerges from helow the gault, we are presented with a great 

 variety of the subcretaceous diluvium. Here it still consists of 

 a large share of angular flint, mixed up with fragmentary iron- 

 stone (carr-stone ?) and sandstone derived from its own rocks, 

 and bearing slight marks of being drifted or rolled. Amongst 

 these debris, in two places only I have detected the presence of 

 a very few rounded pebbles ; at Hurston WaiTcn near Storring- 

 ton* on the south side of the Weald, with small chalk pebbles, 

 and near Sevenoaks in Kent ; — in both cases, I presume, strays 

 from the lost tertiaries. 



The most notable fact in regard to these gravel beds is, that 

 they lie, when in most force, in hollows scooped out of the soft 

 sand rock. Elsewhere they are widely sprinkled over the surface 

 of the country, where the grosser materials seem to have been 

 retained by entanglement in the loose sand. Indeed the only 

 important accumulations of the angular gravels are to be found on 

 the soft or shanklin sands, or upper ferruginous beds of the 

 lower greensand ; where, as I have just said, they seem to have 

 been retained mainly by their involvement in the broken sand, 

 and their lodgement in the hollows of the soft rock, which, when 

 cleared out, have all the appearance of being originally scooped 

 out by water moving with great violence. One of the most re- 

 markable beds of this kind is being worked for road material in 

 and about Peasemarsh near Guildford. In its composition it is 

 an exact countei'part to the beds on the hill tops at Fittleworth, 

 Lavington Common, and the ferruginous sand country south of 

 Midhurstf. The prevailing materials are broken flint, chert 

 and sandstone, derived from the lower beds of greensand, and 

 perhaps here and there a stray pebble. 



These drifts prevail all round the subcretaceous zone ; on the 

 south side as far east as the country north of Lewes J, and on 

 the north from Peasemarsh to Ashford§ ; and I doubt not are 

 continued on to Hythe, although I have not followed them so 

 far. But it is a notable fact, that, except in a few instances, 

 these gravels do not lie on the high bold platforms of the lower 

 beds of the formation in question, although they may be found 

 in small quantities on the Weald clay below. In the same manner 



* Sussex. t Sussex. 



X Mantell's Geol. of S.E. of England, p. 29. § Kent. 



