216 PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIE TEACHINGS. CHAP. III. 



of Greensand, which, stretching westward, at Leith Hill rises 

 to an elevation of a thousand feet ; the highest point of land 

 in the South-East of England. To the east, this division of 

 the cretaceous deposits forms a chain of sand hills that stretches 

 by Godstone in Sussex, and Sevenoaks in Kent, to the sea- 

 shore near Folkstone and Hythe. The Forest Range of the 

 Wealden occupies the middle region, extending westward to 

 Horsham, and eastward to Crowborough Hill, its greatest 

 altitude, and thence to Hastings, having on each- flank the 

 Wealden valleys of Kent and Sussex : while in the remote 

 distance, the unbroken and gently undulated outline of the 

 South Downs appears on the verge of the horizon. 



Pursuing his journey, the traveller passes through the town 

 of Reigate, along the valley of Gait, and over the ferruginous 

 cretaceous sands of Cockshut Hill, and descending the steep 

 escarpment, soon arrives at a marshy plain, where the abun- 

 dance of rushes indicates the commencement of the argilla- 

 ceous beds of the Wealden. 



The Weald-day, containing bands of shelly fresh-water 

 limestone, appears at Horley Common ; and while in the 

 beginning of the journey the roads were seen to be re- 

 paired with chalk-flints, and near Reigate with cherty sand- 

 stone, or the iron-grit locally termed clinker, the materials 

 now chiefly employed are the bluish grey shelly limestones of 

 the Weald. 



At Crawley, Wealden sands and sandstones appear, and the 

 road is constructed of calciferous grit, and limestone containing 

 bivalve shells, bones, portions of terrestrial plants, &c. Tra- 

 versing Tilgate Forest and Handcross, over a succession of 

 gentle anticlinal ridges of sandstone, and across clay valleys, 

 he rapidly descends from the sandstone ridge of Bolney, to 

 Cuckfield, leaving on the right the site of our Iguanodon 

 quarry, near which a windmill now stands, and again journeys 

 along a district of Weald-clay with fresh-water limestones. 



Ferruginous greensand like that of Reigate reappears at 

 Hickstead, and is succeeded by a tract of Gait and Chalk- 

 marl; and finally the road, entering a defile in the South 

 Downs, passes on to Brighton ; the traveller having in the 

 course of his journey crossed from one system of chalk hills 

 to another; that is, over the North Downs of Surrey, and 

 the South Downs of Sussex, (through which he passed by 



