64 WEALD, OR OAK TREE CLAY. 



tioned, the archiepiscopal chair is composed of it. Another more general 

 use was for slabs of sepulchral monuments, into which portraits and in- 

 scriptions of brass were inserted. In the chancel at Trotton, there is a 

 single stone, the superficial measure of which is nine feet six inches, by 

 four feet six inches ; and another, in the pavement of the cathedral of 

 Chichester, measures more than seven feet by three and a half*/' York 

 Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Temple Church, Sahsbury Cathedral, and 

 most of the principal gothic edifices in the kingdom, contain pillars or 

 slabs of this marble. It is singular, that in Woodward's time, an opinion 

 prevailed, that these pUlars, &c. were artificial, and formed of a cement 

 cast in moulds ; but, as that author remarks, " Any one who shall confer 

 the grain of the marble of those pillars, the spar, and the shells in it, with 

 those of this marble got in Sussex, wiU soon discern how little ground 

 there is for that opinion, and yet it has prevailed very generally. I met 

 with several instances of it as I travelled through England, and had fre- 

 (juent opportunities of showing those who asserted these pillars to be fac- 

 titious, stone of the very same sort with that they were composed of, 

 in the neighbouring quarries -f." 



^s^umerous examples of the durability of this limestone have been 

 noticed above ; yet from long exposure in damp situations, it undergoes 

 decomposition, and the petrified testaceae may then be extricated almost 

 entire. The specimens, figs. 5, 6. tab. xvii. are examples of this kind ; 

 the slab delineated in the same plate is of the most compact and beautiful 

 variety, that occurs in the south-eastern division of the county. 



Mr. Young ij: observes, that this limestone affords a very valuable 

 manure, equal to chalk ; and Hasted 1| mentions, that a grey turbinated 

 marble, greatly resembhng it, is found at Eethersden, in Kent : specimens 

 in my possession, from the last-mentioned locality, are perfectly analogous 

 to the Sussex marble. 



* Dallaway's Western Sussex, chap. 26, page 145. 



■f Woodward's Fossils, loc. cit. 



J Young s Jgriadtural Survey of Sussex. 



II liasted's Kent. 



