﻿PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



this Memoir seem to me to require much more 

 illustration than they have received. Some 

 facts not having been noticed, and others not 

 j? sufficiently insisted upon, I hope to show, that 

 « if we cannot yet satisfactorily account for all the 

 | external appearances of a country so near to 

 s our metropolis, we may at all events safely 

 withhold our assent to some of the theoreti- 

 cal views which have been employed to explain 

 g the modifications of its outlines and the dis- 

 s tribution of its superficial covering. At the 

 g same time I am quite aware that my observa- 



tions are far from being complete, even in re- 

 | m - ference to this limited area, and I chiefly offer 

 1 1 them, as well as my theoretical views, in order 

 | g, to elicit further inquiry and discussion. 



£•£ Denudation of the Central Region of the 

 || Wealden.—ThdX the Weald of Kent, Surrey, 

 •e^ and Sussex, being a valley of elevation, has 

 also, like most such masses, been powerfully 

 denuded of overlying rocks that once existed 

 js in it, was long ago suggested ; but the extent 

 ^•2 to which portions of its surface, lying between 

 || the central nucleus and the chalk-escarpments, 

 ^ . still retain transported materials upon them 

 has not been adequately stated. Let us first 

 scrutinize the nature of the broken and super- 

 's ficial materials which overlie the formations 

 $ whose faces or edges have been exposed, and 

 §> see whether there be drifted matter within the 



1 Weald similar to that which has traversed the 

 E gorges in the subtending ridges of chalk, and 

 •B has been so largely spread out on the outer 

 J? slopes of the South and North Downs. 



S* Viewed on a ground -plan, the Wealden of the 

 S South-east of England and the Boulonnais, as 

 1 surrounded by the Chalk and the younger or 

 | tertiary deposits, consists of a succession of 

 £ ellipses within ellipses, composed of strata suc- 

 | cessively overlapping one another. The inner- 

 ~ most mass of these, or the sandstones and clays 

 ~ of Hastings, is, as far as I know, devoid of all 

 | transported matter on its surface (see fig. 1). 

 •S^ No detritus of chalk-flints, nor any drift which 

 *| may have been carried from the higher sur- 

 ■| S rounding ridges, has hitherto been found on the 

 go slopes of the hills or in the valleys which per- 

 4? | tain to the really central nucleus, designated the 

 £,5 Forest Ridge by Mantell, and which extends 

 *<s from Brightling Down and Crowborough Bea- 



