82 Proceedings. 



present road, the greater part of the way down the hill. At 

 the foot of the hill the outcrop of the Sandgate Beds was 

 traversed and a head- water of the Medway crossed. Half-way 

 np the gentle rise on the other side the Folkestone Beds 

 commence. The party shortly reached the ancient hostelry 

 at Godstone, where, after brief but welcome rest and a light 

 refreshment, progress was made still north to the caves in 

 the silver-sand of the Folkestone Beds, where some time was 

 pleasantly spent in the cool labyrinthine recesses ; emerging 

 from which the members proceeded to a delph in the Gault, 

 a little north of the Westerham Eoad at Tylor's Green, where 

 nodules of phosphate of lime or coprolites were found, and 

 several fossils (some coated with phosphatic matter), princi- 

 pally Ammonites intemqitiis, A. varians, A. tuherciilatus, 

 Inoceramus sulcatus, Hamites and Belemnites, &c., such as 

 are generally found at the base of the Gault. After a few 

 minutes' diligent search amongst the fossiliferous earth, the 

 party hastened to the Firestone Quarries in the Upper Green- 

 sand, where two of the principal workmen were waiting to 

 conduct the members ; and, being kindly furnished with 

 candles, they were piloted through as large a section of the 

 apparently innumerable ramifications as time could be spared 

 for to allow of the train being caught at Caterham, and the 

 subterranean workings were found something amazing in 

 their vast extent ; spacious passages opened out here and 

 there into wide halls, whence other cavernous passages 

 radiated in all directions. These workings are very ancient, and 

 are not inappropriately designated "catacombs." They are 

 of such vast extent that it would take half a day to explore 

 the whole. The workings in the main follow the dip about 

 7°. The conductors explained the method of working the 

 stone, which is chiselled out in huge slabs, and used for fire- 

 places, furnaces, and a great deal is used for building-stone. 

 It is soft in the quarry, and is then worked with comparative 

 ease, but becomes very hard after exposure. It is of a 

 calcareo-siliceous nature, and appears to be found here in a 

 bed six feet in thickness, lying on a bed of harder nature, 

 closer and more of a limestone, to about eighteen inches 



