﻿36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [NOV. 20, 



wood in which Hartley Parsonage is building and the Church of 

 Longfield, a depth of five or six feet of yellow sandy loam is visible 

 above the chalk ; and it constitutes the surface of a field on the 

 western slope of the valley, between the wood and the Longfield and 

 Darenth road. The eastern side of the valley rises more abruptly ; 

 and on that side soils consisting of a white surface of chalk, and of 

 brown non-calcareous and whitish calcareous loams, may all be seen 

 within an area of fifty acres. A bed of the last, several feet deep, 

 adjoins the road, a few furlongs north of Longfield. For about 

 a mile northward, between that point and Green street Green, the 

 road passes over a bed of coarse flints, slightly waterworn, though 

 more so than those spread over the surface of the higher grounds. 

 This bed of flints, which is in some parts six or seven feet deep, 

 rests on chalk, and is perhaps about ten chains wide. The eastern 

 side of the valley above it shows some slight indications of terraces, 

 but they are very irregular. I have not traced these deposits north- 

 ward of Greenstreet Green ; but we know that the southern bank of 

 the Thames, in this neighbourhood, is fringed, like the northern, 

 with mammalian and freshwater deposits, at considerable elevations 

 above the existing stream, but lower than the non-fossiliferous de- 

 posits described above. 



I have myself sent specimens to the Museum of the Society from 

 beds still nearer the mouth of the Thames, in the neighbourhood of 

 Faversham, which extending below the level of high water, exhibit, 

 in their molluscous contents, lacustrine or fluviatile, but not estuary, 

 conditions ; and are covered by non-fossiliferous deposits analogous 

 to that of the erratic warp of Norfolk. 



In conclusion, I would remark on the similarity of the phenomena 

 of the most recent deposits in a transverse valley extending from the 

 estuary of the Thames to the summit level of the chalk of Kent, to 

 those of the valley of Gaytonthorpe, also a transverse valley, similarly 

 situated with respect to the estuary of the Wash and the chalk 

 which constitutes the highest part of Norfolk ; and I would urge on 

 those geologists who attribute the formation of the soil which covers 

 the chalk to solution in situ by atmospheric erosion, to examine 

 carefully and impartially phenomena which appear wholly irrecon- 

 cileable with such an origin. 



I would also urge the necessity of endeavouring to work out the 

 sequence of deposits between the Norwich Crag and the historic sera 

 on physical evidence ; and, having determined it by those means, to 

 ascertain what organic remains are contained in each member of the 

 series, instead of assigning different epochs to detached deposits, in 

 consequence of the presence or absence of a particular species of 

 mammal or mollusc, which, having existed through the whole period, 

 may be present in certain deposits, or absent from them, solely from 

 local accidents. I would also ask, whether any better method can 

 be devised of working out these questions on physical evidence, than 

 by tracing the phsenomena of the superficial deposits from the summit 

 level of a given district through the minor dry valleys into the larger 

 river valleys, in which we find the most recent deposits containing 



