§ 7. TILGATE FOREST. 371 



laminated shales and clays, full of fresh- water shells.* In 

 a visit to this place with my friend Mr. Lyell, in 1831, 

 many new species of shells were found in the bed of the 

 stream, having been washed out of the banks of clay ; and 

 we collected teeth of crocodiles, and bones of fresh-water 

 turtles, and of other reptiles. Several species of Cyclas, 

 and of Potamicles, were abundant in the clay (Lign. 97) ; and 

 a mussel shell, which I named jSIytilus Lyellii, to commemo- 

 rate our excursion (lAgn. 98, jig. 2), also a fluviatile species, 

 was found in a mass of shale that had fallen into the rivulet. 



7. Tilgate Forest. — As the grit, or calciferous sand- 

 stone, forms an excellent road-material, the quarries along 

 the principal lines leading from the metropolis to the south- 

 eastern coast, are very numerous ; and those spread over 

 the area of Tilgate and St. Leonard's Forests, were exten- 

 sively worked some twenty-five years since, when an in- 

 creased communication between London and Brighton, 

 rendered it alike necessary and profitable, to keep the 

 turnpike roads in the best possible state. 



This district may be described as bounded on the west 

 by the London roads leading through Horsham, and on the 

 east by those which pass by Lindfield, and Cuckfield ; the 

 Crawley road, as previously mentioned, passing through 

 Tilgate Forest. These localities, particularly the latter, 

 have acquired much celebrity for their organic remains; 

 the quarries in that part of Sussex having been the prin- 

 cipal source, whence the specimens figured in my work 

 on the "Fossils of Tilgate Forest" \ were derived; 

 but every quarry throughout the Forest-range, from 

 Loxwood in Western Sussex, to Hastings, have yielded 

 the peculiar fossils of the wealden, more or less abun- 

 dantly. 



* See Fossils of Tilgate Forest, p. 47. Geology of the South-East 

 of England, p. 22. 



f The Fossils of Tilgate Forest, 1 vol. 4to. with plates, 1S27. 

 B B 2 



