NOTES ON THE PRINCIPAL CHALK-PITS OF SUSSEX. 
Bureuam Chalk-pit is celebrated for the remains of those rare fossils called 
‘* Marsupites,” which Mr. Coombe has found in such perfect preservation. It 
is the ‘‘ upper chalk,” and is very free and white. In the centre of the pit 
there is a large fissure filled with reddish sand, probably of the same age as the 
elephant-bed. 
Houghton Chalk-pit is one of the most magnificent chalk-quarries in Sussex ; 
it is of great extent, and was worked at a very early period; the northern and 
southern extremities present a peculiarly picturesque appearance. ‘Time has 
transformed the white chalk into various shades of colour. The projecting and 
rough rocks, covered in many places with drooping plants and foliage, the river 
winding its course through the valley, and the beautiful Downs of Arundel Park, 
all combine to make it a very beautiful and delightful spot. 
The pit itself presents one of the best sections of the upper chalk formation, 
that is to say, chalk with flints ; and the regular deposition of the flint nodules, 
varving from two to eight feet apart, is well displayed. Many of the scarcest 
and most interesting fossils are found in it—the bones of Saurians, of Birds, 
Fishes, Echinoderms, Testacea, &c. The flints occasionally contain drusic 
cavities of quartz and calcedony. I have procured from this pit very fine 
specimens of botryoidal and stalactitic calcedony, and cubic crystals of calce- 
dony, which are very rare. Foraminifera are abundant on the exterior coatings 
of the flints ; and fossil wood, which is rare in other cretaceous deposits, is here 
often found in the chalk, and sometimes attached to the flints. 
The large quarry on the opposite side of the river Arun is called ‘‘ Balcombe- 
