6 Mr. Hopkins on the Structure of the 



point where the BrightUng line terminates, and the three hnes above described 

 commence. It is certain also that there has been more than ordinary disturbance 

 along the whole of the BrightHng and Hastings lines. In the neighbourhood of 

 Battle, particular beds of limestone have been worked to a considerable extent, 

 and can be easily identified. By means of these beds a fault has been detected 

 in Archer's Wood of sixty fathoms, as stated by Dr. Mantell*. Indications of 

 great dislocation are observable also in many other places. 



On the east of the new road from Battle to St. John's Cross, it would seem im- 

 possible to identify the three lines above mentioned to any considerable distance. 

 The valley which passes down to Winchelsea (at least the upper part of it) may, 

 possibly, have originated in a dislocation connected with the central line. At Brede 

 (on the northern side) one of the beds of hard limestone above mentioned is worked 

 for repairing the roads, and I was informed that the same bed was found at the 

 level of the river, a point lower by several hundred feet than the village. Suppo- 

 sing this to be the case, there must be an enormous fault running along this part of 

 the valley. The dip on both sides of the valley is to the east of north. On the 

 north of the valley also, half-way between Sedlescomb and the Udymer great road, 

 a new cut showed the strata rising southward at an angle of about 25° to a ridge 

 running south of east, with a parallel valley on the north. Along this ridge I have 

 no doubt of the existence of a line of elevation. 



I have been the more particular in the description of the phsenomena between 

 Battle and Brightling, because the line terminating at one of those places has been 

 represented as a continuation of the one terminating at the other, the whole hne 

 having thus been made to assume a somewhat irregular and anomalous form. This 

 is, in fact, one of those localities in which insulated observations are sure to lead 

 to erroneous conclusions respecting true geological structure, the discovery of which 

 can frequently be effected only by the most careful and laborious research f. 



Bexhill Line. — In proceeding westerly along the coast from Hastings, the natural 



* Geology of the South-east of England, p. 221. 



t Dr. Mantell has remarked, " The dip of the strata around Pounceford, as in all the surrounding 

 district, is as various as possible, the disruption of the beds being so great, that faults, and horses, as the 

 risings of the strata are called in Sussex, are observable in almost every quarry." — Geology of the South- 

 east of England, p. 225. I think it necessary to notice this passage as coming from the eminent geolo- 

 gist from whose work it is quoted, lest it should be thought to militate against my own conclusions in 

 which I assert the existence of so much regularity and law in the phsenomena of elevation of the district 

 of the Weald. There are probably few very disturbed districts in which insulated observations might 

 not appear to justify such a remark as that just quoted ; but it is equally certain that patient research, 

 with a clear geometrical conception of the subject, will rarely fail to evolve from such seeming confusion, 

 the most unequivocal laws of geological structure. Pounceford is situated a little to the north of Bright- 

 ling anticlinal line. The variations of dip in that neighbourhood are much more in degree than in direc- 



