184 AN ENGLISH SHIRE. 



accurately represents the main formative points in the 

 ante-human history of the county. 



So much by way of preface or introduction. These 

 facts of structure form the data for the reconstruction of 

 the Sussex annals during the human period. Upon them 

 as framework all the subsequent development of the 

 county hangs. And first let us observe how, before the 

 advent of man upon the scene, the shire was already 

 strictly demarcated by its natural boundaries. Along 

 the coast, between Chichester Harbour and Brighton, 

 stretched a long, narrow, level strip of clay and alluvium, 

 suitable for the dwelling-place of an agricultural people. 

 Back of this coastwise belt lay the bare rounded range of 

 the South Downs good grazing land for sheep, but 

 naturally incapable of cultivation. Two rivers, however, 

 flowed in deep valleys through the Downs, and their 

 basins, with the outlying combes and glens, were also 

 the predestined seats of agricultural communities. The 

 one was the Ouse, passing through the fertile country 

 around Lewes, and falling at last into the English Chan- 

 nel at Seaford, not as now at Newhaven ; the other was 

 the Cuckmere river, which has cut itself a deep glen in 

 the chalk hills just beneath the high cliffs of Beachy 

 Head. Beyond the Downs again, to the north, the 

 country descended abruptly to the deep trough of the 

 Weald, whose cold and sticky clays or porous sandstones 

 are never of any use for purposes of tillage. Hence, as 

 its very name tells us, the Weald has always been a 

 wild and wood-clad region. The Romans knew it as the 

 Silva Anderida, or forest of Pevensey ; the early English 

 as the Andredes weald. Both names are derived from a 



