m 2 



have rendered it necessary to cut down the face of the cliffs from 

 Hastings to that place, have brought to light several portions of 

 the strata, previously concealed. The object of the present paper 

 is to describe some of these details j and a great part of it, conse- 

 quently, is not susceptible of abridgement. 



Several rocky ledges run out obliquely from the shore, both on 

 the east and west of Hastings ; these are analogous to the ledges 

 which occur in the equivalent of the Hastings Sands, on the south 

 coast of the Isle of Wight; and for the greater part consist of con- 

 cretional grit, including especially fresh-water shells, of the ge- 

 iiera Cyclas, Paludina, and Unio; others again are composed of a 

 pisolitic sand-rock, inclosing numerous grains of reddish brown 

 oxide of iron, which is found all along the shore from the Lover's 

 Seat to the west of Bopeep. With the rocks above mentioned beds 

 are found to alternate, — of sand-rock varying in colour and degrees 

 of hardness, clay, and fuUer's-earth. In proceeding westward from 

 Hastings, the strata are observed to decline gradually towards 

 the west as far as the gate of St. Leonard's ; but at a very short 

 distance beyond that point, they rise towards the west, and the 

 same strata are found to recur, but in a reversed order. This 

 appearance, which might at first be ascribed to some derangement, 

 is produced, in fact, by a slight projection of the shore at the 

 eastern point of the Marina at St. Leonard's, where the range of 

 the beds coincides with the direction of the coast; the strata which 

 come up from the sea at a small angle towards the interior, and 

 are continued in the cliffs on the east and west, thus rising in dif- 

 ferent directions. 



Among the strata which have recently been disclosed in the 

 cliffs, a continuation of the remarkable group of the White-rock is 

 one of the most conspicuous, and can be traced from its emer- 

 gence in the sea under the White-rock to the cliff within the 

 New Brewery. Beneath, at an interval of about 30 feet, the well- 

 known bed of white sand-rock which forms the cliff of the Castle 

 Hill at Hastings, rises on the shore, and being continued to the 

 north-east, may be traced in the upper part of the East-cliff, and 

 thence nearly to the summit of Fairlight Down. 



The group of the White-rock contains a subordinate stratum, in 

 which numerous specimens o? Endogenites erosa\\a.vQ been found j 

 and the large number of specimens exposed during the progress 

 of the works, has brought to light some additional circumstances 

 respecting this singular vegetable. The specimens, which were 

 found lying horizontally, in a stratum composed of sand with al- 

 ternate layers of clay, consist of two portions, perfectly distinct from 

 each other: 1st, An external coating of lignite; within which is, 

 2ndly, A stony kernel or nucleus, the internal structure of which 

 has beea already described*. The general form of the whole ap- 

 pears to have been originally nearly cylindrical, and this has been 

 modified by pressure, so that the transverse section both of the 



* Geol. Trans., 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 423 : and Mantell's Tilgate Fossils, 



