166 Dr. FiTTON on the Strata below the Chalk. 



remarkable beds of greenish Fuller's-earth, in general about two feet thick, but in some places 

 much thickei", separated by about four feet of sand-rock, rise upon the road-side, and are continued 

 steadily in the face of the cliff, nearly to the White Rock, being, near that place, more than 30 feet 

 above the bluish clay (II. 9.) at the bottom. The base of the cliffs here is about 20 feet above a 

 floor of rocks which is bare at low water, and consists of yellowish, firmly concreted sand, or 

 sand-rock, abounding in granular (pisolitic) reddish oxide of iron*. This granulated rock forms, 

 hereabouts, a ledge beneath high-water mark, dipping to the west of south, at an angle of about 

 11°, with a strike towards a point about 6° or 7° south of east. 



II. — About 120 paces west of White Rock, where the road formerly began to rise over that 

 prominence, the cliff behind the new houses, about 40 feet high, consists of a large proportion 

 of sand and sand-rock, with alternations of clay ; and in some places contains so much lignite, 

 in the form of indistinct fragments of stems and portions of branches, as to have a dark brown 

 or blackish hue. A bed of light bluish clay (II. 9.) forms the lowest part of this cliff, and seems 

 to be continued downwards ; it probably corresponds to the beginning of the series of beds of clay 

 &c., (III. c.) near the church of St. Leonard's. 



On the shore at low water, about 150 paces west of the place last mentioned, is a group of beds 

 which are curved, so that their dip is divergent, those on the east dipping towards the south, at 



an angle of about 10°; they consist of sand-rock, and may possibly be continuous with the sloping 

 bed at the White Rock, shown in the section, and inferior to the bluish clay of II. 9. Other ap- 

 pearances indicate that this has been the scene of some derangement, so that the relations of the 

 beds, above described, to those under the White Rock and on the west of it, are still doubtful: the 

 whole series, however, is nearly conformable, and almost continuous with the rest of the strata 

 towards St. Leonard's. 



On the east and south of the nook, in which is the light bluish clay, II. 9. a bed of brownish 

 sand-rock about 10 feet thick, immediately adjoins the road, dipping to the south of west, at a 

 much more rapid inclination (about 18°) than that of the adjacent strata. This bed, neverthe- 

 less, may be a continuation of those which form the curve represented above ; and its present 

 position may have been the result either of subsidence, which has caused it to fall away from the 

 apparently continuous mass of strata within it on the north, or of some more extensive derange- 

 ment of the coast at this place. 



III. a. — White Rock Ledge. — The great ledge visible upon the shore at low water, to the solidity 

 of which the prominence of the White Rock (so long as it remained) was to be ascribed, rises 

 beneath the sea, about 200 paces to the east of the rock, and seems to be continued for a consider- 

 able distance in that direction. A series of conformable strata of sand-rock, concretional grit, and 

 slaty clay, here occupies the whole space between high- and low-water mark, for more than 1 00 



* This stratum I did not see in these cliffs : but granular oxide of iron abounds in those on the 

 east of Hastings, and seems to be very generally diflused in a lower part of the series. The 

 grains whicli I liave here called Pisolitic, seem to have existed originally in the form of iron 

 pyrites ; — of which substance globules of various sizes from that of pistol bullets downwards, 

 are still found on the sand-rock at St. Leonard's. The origin of the ore of iron to which the name 

 of Pisolitic has been applied, is ascribed by Haidinger to the decomposition of pyrites. — Trans- 

 lation of Mohs' Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 412. 



