BEACHES, ETC., OF THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND. 



267 





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I could find no fossil remains of any sort in this rubble ; but a 

 few hundred yards distant, up the valley, several Palaeolithic imple- 

 ments have been found on the surface of this drift, with which they 

 are not improbably connected, as they are elsewhere. 



The cliffs between Birling Gap and the 

 Cuckmere Eiver exhibit several other small 

 dry valleys cut off by the coast cliff. Most of 

 these show traces at their base of the same 

 drift (Head), but they present no new fea- 5^?5 

 tures. The Cuckmere Valley itself is fringed o rcj 

 in places by low hills of sand and flint- ^5' 

 rubble with large blocks of Tertiary sand- f p 

 stone.^ o- -• 



(6) A.t Newhaven the sea probably pene- cTp^ 

 trated some distance up the Ouso Valley ; | R^ 

 for at a pit on the hill-slopes near Heighten, ^ 3 

 2 miles inland, to which my attention was %- 2 

 directed last year by Mr. H. Willett, there g.;^ 

 is a well-marked exhibition of Head resting % '^ 



C CO 



on a floor of chalk which has been levelled '^ B' 

 by water-action. This floor is about 50 feet ^ a. y f '% 

 above the Ouse, and although no liaised Beach ■. ^ 

 is at present to be seen there are rolled \ 

 pebbles strewn about, with worn masses of \ 

 ironstone at the base of the Head indicative ; 

 of shore- or river-action. The Head extends \ 

 farther in, and seems to abut against a Chalk ; 

 cliff, as the Chalk comes to the surface on the | 

 top of the hill. This Head is from 10 to 15 \ 

 feet thick, and consists as usual of roughly- s 

 bedded local rubble of chalk and angular • 

 flints, with some Tertiary debris, alternating ; 

 with beds of finely-laminated marl and dense 

 massesof angular flint-rubble (often concreted 

 into solid blocks), together with some very 

 large entire flints and a few brown-stained 

 much-worn flints from an older drift. We 

 found one fragment of an Elephant's tusk 

 and one tooth of Rhinoceros tieJiorJiinus^ but 

 no shells. This deposit is identical with the 

 Elephant Bed of Brighton. 



There is a small exhibition of Head and 

 Coombe Eock at llottingdean, but no Raised 

 Beach, as the sea has encroached too far on ^'/ j 



the old line of cliffs. ^/ 



(7) Bri(/hton. — We here have the typical 

 Head of the South Coast, overlying a well- 

 marked Raised Beach. The overlying mass of rubble or the 

 Elephant Bed attains, according to Man tell, a thickness of GO feet. 



^ Murchison, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. -vol. vii, (1851) p. 360. 



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