The Rev. W. Buckland on the Plastic Clay Formation. 295 



on the chalk. This chalk rises suddenly to a lofty cliff' on the cast 

 side of the flat ground that lies between Newhaven and Seaford, 

 dividing the beds of the plastic clay formation at Newhaven from 

 their outlying fragment at Chimting, with which they probably were 

 connected before the excavation of the valley of the Ouse. 



The upper surface of the chalk at Chimting, as seen in the cliffs, 

 dips at an angle of about 20° to the west. The dip of the incumbent 

 beds of breccia and sand is conformable with it. These last beds 

 are soon lost in ascending the hill eastward from the Castle ; first the 

 sand ceases, and afterwards the breccia having formed a thin cap on 

 the chalk for a short distance disappears a little below the Signal 

 House about one mile east of Seaford. Hence the chalk extends 

 forming a cliff to Cuckmere Haven, where on the heights composed 

 of it on the west of the Cuckmere river, we sought in vain for the 

 stratified sand and breccia, finding nothing but an alluvial cap of 

 sand and gravel ; and as far as the eye could judge, looking eastward 

 from this point, there was no appearance of superior beds on any 

 summits of the chalk which forms the entire substance of those 

 magnificent cliffs that extend from Cuckmere Haven to Beachy 

 Head. 



At Newhaven, in the lowest part of the Castle Hill close to the 

 mouth of the Ouse on the west side, we again found the breccia 

 that has been described at Chimting Castle, nearly of the same thick- 

 ness and in the same state and relative position between the upper 

 surface of the chalk and the incumbent beds of sand ; it differs from 

 it only in being less firmly cemented, and appears equally identical 

 with the oyster bed at Reading. The greater number of its flints 

 are not much rolled. 



The state of the tide, and their elevated position, prevented us 

 from examining the hollows on the surface of the chalk in which 



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