138 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



and consequently he would have less distance to 

 travel for the same results. In fact, the whole of 

 these interesting beds may be seen in an afternoon 

 between Caterham Junction and Tilburstow Hill, a 

 distance of only some half-dozen miles. 



Let us then pursue the walk from Caterham over 

 the Chalk, leaving the Tertiary outliers behind. In 

 about half an hour we shall meet with some re- 

 markable Greensand quarries, where the workings 

 are carried into the hillsides to a distance of several 

 hundred yards. This Greensand is soft enough to 

 be easily shaped into blocks in the workings, but 

 when brought out into the daylight it hardens in 

 weathering, so as to make durable slabs. Next 

 comes a flat reach of land extending for nearly a 

 mile, on which abound the rushes that at once 

 inform us that we are walking over clay. This is 

 the Gault, seen to greater advantage in the Warren 

 at Folkestone, where the most beautiful fossils, 

 Ammonites, Hamites, Nuculae, etc., may be picked 

 up in numbers when the tide is out. 



Just as we are entering the romantic village 

 of Godstone, the Gault gives place to the Lower 

 Greensand group, which embraces the Folkestone, 

 Sandgate, and Hythe beds. These latter form the 

 southern ascent of the London basin ; and when we 

 have reached the Hythe beds we find ourselves on 

 a considerable elevation, which is a kind of brink 

 to another vast basin. It is in this basin that the 

 Wealden Clay lies, and it stretches away from our 

 feet over to Hurstpierpoint, twenty-five miles 

 distant, where again the Hythe Sand is seen, and 



