CHAPTER VIII. 



GIANT LAND REPTILES, OR DINOSAURS. 



THE traveller from London to Hastings, by way of the 

 South-Eastern Railway, on leaving the chalk hills of 

 the North Downs, some short distance to the north of 

 Sevenoaks, enters suddenly on a more open district, 

 known as the Weald of Kent and Sussex. This district 

 presents many remarkable and peculiar features, one 

 of the most striking being the great prevalence of 

 oak-trees in those parts having a clayey soil ; and the 

 traveller will not fail to notice that, in place of the 

 chalk which he has just left, all the rocks of the 

 district consist of alternations of beds of clay, sand, 

 and sandstone^ These peculiarities in the structure of 

 the rocks continue the whole way to Hastings ; and the 

 tall cliffs of sandstone, on one of which are perched the 

 ruins of the ancient castle, rising to the eastward of 

 that town, and forming the most prominent features 

 in the landscape of the neighbourhood, are too well 

 known to require further mention. The whole of this 

 extensive series of rocks, which attains a vertical 

 thickness of many hundred feet, and has been much 

 worn away by atmospheric action, and thrown into a 



