572 Oolites and Lower Greens and. 



recent date, left in a state of natural grass, and used 

 chiefly as pasture land. They formed a feeding ground 

 for vast numbers of sheep, whence the origin of the 

 woollen factories of Gloucestershire, but are now to a 

 great extent brought under the dominion of the plough, 

 and on the very highest of them we find fields of turnips 

 and grain. The broad flat belts of Oxford and Kime- 

 ridge Clay, that lie between the western part of the 

 Oolite and the base of the Chalk escarpment, are in 

 part in the state of grass land. 



In the north of England the equivalents of the 

 Lower Oolites form the broad heathy tracts of the 

 Yorkshire moors, and the fertile Vale of Pickering is 

 occupied by the Kimeridge Clay. 



If we pass next into the Cretaceous series, which in 

 the middle and south of England forms extensive tracts 

 of country, we meet with many kinds of soil, some, as 

 those on the Lower Grreensand, being excessively silicious, 

 and in places intermingled with veins and strings of 

 silicious oxide of iron. Such a soil still remains in 

 many places intractable and barren. Thus, on the 

 borders of the Weald from Leith Hill to Petersfield, 

 where there is very little lime in the rocks, there are 

 many wide-spread unenclosed heaths, almost as wild and 

 refreshing to the smoke-dried denizens of London, as 

 the broad moors of Wales and the Highlands of Scot- 

 land. These, partly from their height, but chiefly from 

 the poverty of the soil, have never been brought into a 

 state of cultivation. Kunning, however, in the line of 

 strike of the rocks, between the escarpments of the 

 Lower Grreensand and the Chalk, there are occasionally 

 many beautiful and fertile valleys rich in fields, parks, 

 and noble forest timber. 



One of these, between the slopes of the Grreensand and 



