4 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
graphs of sections made for the Photographic Survey of Kent. 
The white cliff behind the human figure at the left of the plate 
is Thanet sand, which should be below the Woolwich beds shown 
on the right. The displacement was occasioned by current action 
at the period of the deposition of the Woolwich beds or by the 
local disturbance mentioned on page 15. The bed of Thanet sand 
exposed was 16ft. wide at the top, and more than 6ft. thick. It 
extended backwards trooyds. from the exposed face, and then 
terminated abruptly. Fossils are seldom found in this formation, 
which varies much in thickness in different localities, although it is 
fairly equal in our district. In borings described in Mr. Whitaker’s 
larger book mentioned above, the thickness at the former Naval 
PLATE 2. 
School at New Cross is stated as 48ft. At Watney’s Brewery, 
Brockley, it is goft.; at Lower Sydenham, a little to the south 
of the railway station, 5oft.; at Greenwich Hospital, 55ft.; and at 
Eltham and Shortlands, 4goft. and 48ft. respectively. 
Superimposed on the Thanet beds are the Woolwich and 
Reading beds. We will mention them by the former name only 
because, although of similar age in both localities, they differ 
greatly in character. In our district we have red and purple 
mottled clay; blue, flaky, estuarine clay containing numerous 
shells of Cyrena cunerformts, a bivalve mollusc somewhat like a 
cockle, and blue clay with pebbles. These variations were well 
shown at Belmont Hill. Plate 2 is reproduced from a photograph 
