DRUID SANDSTONE. 253 



XV. 



§ III. 9. DRUID SANDSTONE, 



Immense blocks and boulders of siliceous sandstone, composed of gra- 

 nular quartz, and occasionally enveloping chalk flints, and other extraneous 

 bodies, lie scattered over the Downs, and on the ploughed lands, near 

 Brighton, Falmer, and other places. This sandstone is perfectly analogous 

 to that which occurs in Berkshire and Wiltshire, where it is distinguished 

 by the provincial term of " Grey Weathers." Of this substance, Stonehenge 

 and other druidical monuments are composed, a circumstance that has 

 given rise to its present geological appellation. The cement of the beauti- 

 ful conglomerate or puddingstone of Hertfordshire, agrees in its characters 

 with the druid sandstone, and from that breccia also occurring in detached 

 blocks above the chalk, it is now generally supposed that they are both of 

 contemporaneous origin ; the siliceous deposition, when it did not envelope 

 any foreign substance, forming the rock called the " Go-ey Weathers," 

 and when it fell among pebbles of any kind, composing a breccia or j^ud- 

 dingstone*. 



Professor Buckland, and Mr. Webster, have ably investigated the geo- 

 logical history of this substance, and it affords me much pleasure to be 

 able to corroborate their opinions, by the discovery of blocks of the sand- 

 stone under circumstances similar in this county. 



The puddingstone is exceedingly rare in Sussex, but specimens some- 

 times occur; and I have several examples from the vicinity of Newhaven, 

 that could not be distinguished from the Hertfordshire breccia. 



* Geological Transactions, Vol. ii. p. 225. 



