57 



wish you to refer to, as giving a more detailed account than it 

 would be possible for me to accomplish in this paper.* I would 

 only now treat of the physical aspect of the soils we shall meet 

 with. On the north of East Kent the coast is chiefly composed of 

 London clay as far as Heme Bay and Reculver, except the pro- 

 montory of the Isle of Thanet, which we may consider as a 

 dome-shaped elevation of chalk which rises from beneath the 

 Thanet beds, which latter form here a synclinal or trough-shaped 

 valley, and differ considerably in their structure, dependent on 

 whether the upper or lower parts are exposed, the Thanet beds 

 are clayey and compact in their lowest strata, and sandy and 

 soft in their upper. These Thanet beds are followed by the 

 Woolwich and old haven beds, the formei almost entirely com- 

 posed of sand, and the latter of sand and pebble beds. The 

 synclinal of these lower tertiaries reaches from Reculver to St. 

 Nicholas on the north, and from Pegwell Bay to Walmer on the 

 south, and a continuation of the same strata seaward is marked 

 by the Margate Sands on the north and the Goodwin Sands on 

 the south. From Walmer to near Folkestone we find a con- 

 tinuous bed of chalk, the lower part of which is exposed beyond 

 Dover as far as Eastwear Bay. Here the gault makes its 

 appearance ; this is quickly succeeded by the greensand series, 

 reaching as far as Hythe, where the clayey beds of the Weald 

 are met with ; but the escarpment of the Hythe beds here termi- 

 nates in the flat lands of Romney marsh succeed by beds of 

 new strata of sea-sand and marsh soil, which is for the most 

 part below the sea level. 



The chalk, as you are aware, forms bold headlands but slowly 

 washed away by the sea, but so soluble in rain-water that it is 

 cut up into valleys. The lower bed, an impervious compact 

 chalk, reposes on a thin bed of upper greensand, composed 

 greatly of sand and very pervious to water; the gault beneath 

 this is nearly pure clay, and is affected greatly by moisture and 

 drought as in the London clay. These same strata are met with 

 in the interior, the chalk forming a ridge of hills extending from 

 Folkestone to Wye, where the river Stour cuts its way through, 

 and forming the valley of the Stour from here to Canterbury on 

 either side, which the chalk is nearly continuous. From Can- 

 terbury to Grove Ferrj', however, we meet with the lower 

 tertiaries on each side of the valley, composed, as I before 

 stated, of various portions of clay and sand, the brow of the 

 hills and some portion of the valley being covered with gravel 

 of ancient date. The Stour valley from Grove Ferry to the sea 

 is composed of alluvium of various depths, that is of mud 

 deposited by the river over the ancient formation, and some part 

 of this is largely composed of sandy clay, containing marine 

 shells, chiefly cockles. One exception to this occurs near the 

 coast at Sandwich, viz,, an old sea-beach, which extends from 



♦See Natural History Society Proceedings. 



