574 Chalk. 



clays and sands were left in their native state, partly 

 forming those broad forests and furze-clad heaths that 

 covered almost the whole of the Wealden area. Hence 

 the name Weald or Wold (a woodland), a Saxon, or 

 rather Old-English term, applied to this part of 

 England, though the word does not now suggest its 

 original meaning, unless to those who happen to know 

 something of Grerman derivatives. 



In the memory of our fathers and grandfathers, these 

 wild tracts were famous as resorts for highwaymen and 

 bands of smugglers, who transported their goods to the 

 interior from the seaport towns of Kent and Essex by 

 means of relays of pack-horses. 



The Chalk strata of the South Downs stretch far 

 into the centre and west of England in Hampshire 

 and Wiltshire. South of the valley of the Thames the 

 same strata form the North Downs, and this Chalk 

 stretches in a broad band, only broken by the Wash 

 and the Humber, northward into Yorkshire, where it 

 forms the well-known Yorkshire Wolds. Most Lon- 

 doners are familiar with the Downs of Kent and Sus- 

 sex. In their wildest native state, where the ground lies 

 high, these districts were probably, from time imme- 

 morial, almost bare of woods, and ' the long backs of the 

 bushless downs,' are still often only marked here and 

 there by ' a faintly shadowed track ' winding ' in loops 

 and links among the dales,' and across the short turf of 

 the upper hills. Yet here, also, cultivation is gradu- 

 ally encroaching. 



On the steep scarped slopes overlooking the Weald, 

 chalk often lies only an inch or two beneath the 

 grass, and the same is the case on the western and 

 north-western slopes of the long escarpment which 

 stretches in sinuous lines from Dorsetshire to York- 



