SINGULAR GYPSUM PITS AND HOLLOWS. 121 



St John. In the vale of Sussex it receives sever; 1 

 tributaries, one of which, flowing in at the eastern end 

 of the valley, is known by the name of the Trout Brook. 

 This brook, before its junction, skirts on its right the 

 base of lofty cliffs of red sandstone conglomerate, the 

 surface of which declines towards the north. Over this, 

 with a northerly dip,* comes on a thick deposit of slaty 

 limestone lying in curved beds, which forms cliffs near a 

 Mr Pugsley s farm-house, on the high road, where the 

 conglomerate is invisible. Beyond this, in the direction 

 of the dip, at a short distance in the woods, the quarries 

 and swallow-pits of gypsum occur. We made our way 

 with much difficulty through swamps and windfalls to one 

 spot, on the south of the road, where the mineral had 

 been occasionally dug out. in considerable quantity, and 

 where cliffs and hollows of every form were made 

 difficult of access, by the entangled fallen timber and 

 impassable muddy pools of a swampy wilderness of 

 untouched forest. But, half a mile to the north side of 

 the high-road, we found the access to another locality 

 more easy, and the appearances far more interesting, 

 The gypsum rock, which does not rise sensibly above the 

 general level so as to form cliffs, is soft and weathered. 

 Its surface, covered with a thin soil, is full of sinks or 

 pits, like round artificial wells, from one to twelve feet 

 deep some dry, others containing water, with their walls 

 and ledges separating them from one another. In all 

 these pits, and rooted on their sides at various depths, and 

 fixed on their narrow rims upon the pure gypsum, 

 young, healthy, as well as large, old cypress trees, and 

 white birches, with a few firs, were growing luxuriantly, 

 or had been growing till very recently. The fires which 

 have so extensively raged this summer, had seized this 

 wood also in which we now were. The trees stood erect 



* My notes say north-easterly. 



