TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS, 109 



purplish colour, spangled with pretty star-liko crystals of solenite. Other speci- 

 mens exhibited contained a hig-h percentage of that useful metal, as much as from 

 55 to 60 per cent. Limonite, too, was abundant. Beneath the ironstone, in a 

 deposit resembling yellow oclu-e, probably an oxide of iron, lay a curious formation 

 containing mucli iron, gypsum, and indurated clay, mth seams of seleuite of a dark 

 green and purple colour. When broken, this stone was found to be beautifidly 

 variegated, and was susceptible of a high polish. The seleuite was so compact 

 in the heart of this formation as to make the eye take it for quartz ; and one 

 gentleman could not be convinced to tlie contrary till he scraped it with his pen- 

 knife. Flints and iron and indurated clay were everywhere frosted over and 

 intercalated with every form and variety that the crystals of seleuite could assume, 

 forming magnificent specimens of nature's workmanship for either the museum or 

 the drawing-room. 



The author next gave a detailed description of the discovery, history, and 

 composition of Websterite, displaying some tine specimens, and stating that there 

 were still hner oues in the British and Brighton Museums. About 3 feet from 

 the surface of the road in Powis Villas, the workmen discovered what had every 

 appearance of the petrified trunlc of a tree, the bark being changed into lignite, and 

 tlie woody structure into a white fibrous substance, witli medullary rays verging 

 from the centre. Two fine specimens of this, in the Brighton Museum, were first 

 marked as " fossilized trees." Upon analyzation, however, by Dr. Flight of the 

 British Museum, the fibrous substance proved to be Websterite, and_ the ligneous- 

 like coating manganese witli a small proportion of cobalt. Testino- it with hydro- 

 chloric acid also reveals the presence of a carbonate, whether of lime, alumina, or 

 some other substance the author does not know. The Websterite lying in the 

 clay or brickearth was in a very friable state, of a milk-white colour, and which 

 might be mistaken by the eye for magnesia. Other specimens were more compact 

 and of a straw-colour ; and in the core of one of these specimens lay imbedded 

 what appeared to be very like a small, smooth, dark-coloured flint ; but flint it 

 was not, but the same substance probably coloured either by manganese or iron. 

 Another pretty specimen in the mineralog'ical department of the Brighton Museum 

 has a beautiful straw-coloured coating of what analyzation might prove to be 

 allophane. 



Mr. Howell then entered into the origin of the specimens exhibited, stating that 

 observations had convinced him that it was chemical agency, and that such was 

 as active now in the beds above the chalk in the Montpellier district at Brighton 

 and elsewhere as ever it had been during the deposition of the Eocene strata, to 

 which these beds geologically belonged. 



On Siiprr- Cretaceous Formations in the Neifjlibourliood of Briijldon. 



Bij James Howell. 



This paper was the result of observations made by Mr, Howell during the pro- 

 gress of the excavations for the purpose of draining the town of Brighton in tlie 

 years 1870 and 1871. According to Mr. Howell, the town of Brighton stands upon 

 six distinct formations : — 



1. Chalk with flints, upon the crests of the liills and their abrupt descents. 



2. Lower Eocene, constituting Furze Hill. 



3. Temple Field deposit, formed of the ruins of the Eocene and Clialk strata. In 

 the Montpellier district, sloping down the western hill towards Furze Hill and 

 Hove Level. 



4. Postpliocene, Brighton cliff formation, Coombe rock or Elephant-bed, chiefly 

 East Brighton, especially the cliffs at Black Rock, also the base of the silt in the 

 Brighton valley. 



5. Postpliocene brickearth, resting on Coombe rock or sand. Hove and \V estern 

 Brighton. 



0. Recent. Silt of the Brighton valley. 



Leaving the Cretaceous strata, so ably explored and so graphically described by 

 Dr. Mantell, the author drew attention to Furze Hill as one of the remnants left 

 1872. 9 



