Mant ell's Fossils of the South Doxms. §15 



(Helix vivipara, of Linne,) and are supposed to resemble the 

 recent species of our rivers : their constituent substance is 

 a white cr3'stalh2ed carbonate of lime, and their cavities 

 are commonly filled with the same substance, presenting a 

 striking contrast to the dark ground of the marble. In otlier 

 varieties the substance of the shells is black, and their sections 

 appear on the surface in the form of nmnerous lines and spiral 

 flgm'es. 



" The Sussex marble occurs in layers, from a few inches to 

 a foot in thickness, and these are connnonly separated from 

 .each other by thin seams of clay, or of coarse friable lime- 

 stone. It is frequently found in blocks or slabs, sufliciently 

 large for sideboards, columns, or chunney-pieces, and but few 

 of the ancient residences of the Sussex gentry are v/ithout 

 them. There is historical proof of its having been knov^^n to 

 the Romans, ' and in the early Norman centuries it was much 

 sought after, and applied as the Piirbeck marble was, v,hen 

 cut into small insulated shafts of pillars, which were placed in 

 the trifaria or upper arcades of cathedral churches, as at 

 Canterbury and Chichester. At the first-mentioned, the archie- 

 piscopal chair is composed of it. Another more general use 

 was for slabs of sepulchral monuments, into Avhich portraits 

 and inscriptions of brass wei-e inserted. In the chancel at 

 Trotton, there is a single stone, the superficial measure of 

 which is nine feet six inches by four feet six inches ; and an- 

 other, in the pavement of the cathedral of Chichester, mea- 

 sures more than seven feet by three and a half*.' York 

 Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Temple Church, Salisbury 

 Cathedral, and most of the principal gothic edifices in the king- 

 dom, contain pillars or slabs of this marble. It is slngalar, 

 that in Woodward's time, an opinion prevailed, that these pil- 

 lars, &c. were artificial, and formed of a cement cast in moulds ; 

 but, as that author remarks, ' any one who shall confer the 

 grain of the marble of those pillars, the spar, and the shells in 

 it, with those of this marble got in Sussex, will soon discern 

 how litde ground there is for that opinion, and yet it has pre- 

 vailed very generally. I met with ?;evcral instances of it as I 

 travelled through England, and had frequent opportunities of 

 showing those who asserted these pillars to be factitious, stone 

 of the very same sort with that they were composed of^ in the 

 neighbouring quarricsf.'" 



Tlic Plates to this work, several of which are neatly co- 

 loured to exhibit the various strata, jire all well engraved ; and 

 with tlie letter-press form a valuable illustration of the Geo- 

 logy of Sussex. 



* Dallawav, ch. xxvi. p. 1 l.i. -f- WoodvirarU't F.)-^;!''-. 



D (\ 1 I'l'oAi, : — 



